


We'll Sail To The Edge of The World

by Morrigan_Healy



Series: And Perhaps Be Welcomed Back Again [3]
Category: A Little Less Sixteen Candles a Little More "Touch Me" - Fall Out Boy (Song), Bandom
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 08:11:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 24
Words: 51,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15239124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morrigan_Healy/pseuds/Morrigan_Healy
Summary: Years after Be Careful What You Wish For, the gang has to reunite to fight the ultimate evil - the undead. Well, that's if they can stop fighting amongst themselves, first. Part 3/4.





	1. Chapter 1

"And I thought we were done with all this supernatural stuff. Yeah, it's a holiday. That doesn't mean we have the right to go completely insane again...those conferences have been over for years, thank god. Remember the last one? We're lucky we didn't end up dead, even with all that creepypasta stuff. Funny how I can't even read half of those anymore without laughing," Adeline Jeanette spoke aloud, not sure if she was really talking to herself or her boyfriend (who really should have been her fiancé by now, she thought with a sly grin), William Beckett, who probably was somewhere in the apartment getting ready for the Halloween party the two were going to later that night, but she just knew with the costume she was currently putting on that they weren't going to be there for long.

"Mhm, oh, Adeline, doll, don't you look lovely," William spoke from the doorway, causing her to jolt and turn, dress not fastened completely, although it didn't cover much of her in the first place.

"Uh, help? I can't reach the zipper...and these - oh!" She jerked softly against William's touch, one hand went to put her zipper up, the other to run along her exposed leg.

"William baby, d-don;t...these...we need to leave soon...I..." the blonde grappled for words as his hand snaked up her dress, fingers delicately sweeping against the black lace panties she wore, already knowing they'd be torn to shreds by the next morning. She shuddered, but he didn't move.

"Oh love...come on...we can play a little bit first, can't we?" he teased, adjusting the black top hat on his head, cracking a smile at the same time.

"Seven hells," she muttered darkly, rolling her hazel eyes, "Babe, there's no time. And what are Matt and Forrest gonna think when I show up with just-fucked hair, hey?" she teased, not expecting him to grin.

"You can just tie it back, like you always do," he murmured, lips against the hollow of her ear as he began to hum something she'd damn well recognize.

"Girl, you shoulda been a drummer You break me down like no other

You beat my heart black and bruised No one does it like you do

No doubt, you've got perfect rhythm Crash and burn and then it ended

You played me so hard so fast Just like heavy metal thunder.."

"You're not funny. You know what the song does to me! And yeah, I know I can tie it back, but this is the longest my hair's ever been! Every since like seventh grade!" she complained, absentmindedly running a hand through her now mid-back length curls.

"Alright, I'll let right now go, but I can't promise the after party's gonna be something you forget."

"Where would the fun in that be? You know there's going to be scene wherever we are, last time you went on tour with Hands Like Horses and Johnny Craig, someone almost broke up, what could top that?"

William smiled and rolled his eyes, motioning towards the door, "Well. Your parent's anniversary landing on the same exact day your heart shattered into a million pieces could be a start, love."

Adeline turned, pulling the back heel strap on the sandals she wore tighter, "Can. You. Not? That's the only reason I hate October now, thank you very much. It's bittersweet - given it's the day after our own anniversary, you can imagine why."

"It's not like we planned it that way, trust me. I didn't think you'd spend the next three days acting like the world had ended."

"Babe, I'd love to argue this more, but we gotta go. We're going to be lat-"

"Well let's get a move on then!"

As usual, the party itself was kind of slow from what AJ had been used to - thinking back she'd had more fun with her fake ID and her friends in Barrington during high school than she was having now, but the only plus side to now was that she didn't need to worry about finding a date every time she left the bar.

Four glasses of wine later, the room had began to spin and the music wasn't getting any better. AJ couldn't see straight and it almost felt like the first night in the Chicago bars during Spring Break all over again.

"William...your girl, you might want to-" Matt had shouted over the constant roar of the speaker, having seen the blonde fumbling to stay on her feet.

Within seconds he'd caught her under the arms, steading her with a sigh.

"After eight years and you still haven't learned to watch yourself. It's a wonder you're not dead."

At this, she smiled, knowing he'd meant something else entirely.

"Can we go now? The party isn't doing anything and we've got better drinks at home.*woah*..." she staggered, putting a hand to her head.

"I need to learn, don't I? This is out of control...if it's not starbucks it's wine, and if it's not that it's-"

"I get it. Come on, we should let the others know."

She smiled, "About time. I don't see why we even came tonight, I've seen the way you've been watching me all night..."

William raised an eyebrow, "Have you now? To be honest, I only thought it'd do you some go to be around other people, you do seem to spend way too much time around me."

"Hey guys, aren't you gonna stay? The contest winners are gonna be announced in like twenty minutes," one of the guys from Hellogoodbye added, arm slung around a redhead that was dressed as a greek goddess.

"Uh, yeah, come on - you two'll win something just because of who you are," a Jack Dawson chimed in.

"Thanks, but...I'm drunk and a little more than wanting to be alone with somebody right now, gentlemen!" AJ announced, grabbing for William's hand, attempting to walk to whichever way was the door.

"Some people never change," was the last thing AJ heard as the two went outside, the cool autumn air somewhat of a relief against her face as the alcohol had played with her body temperature and complexion, even though she was a vampire.

"That's better. It's actually nice out, given it's not snowing yet...I wonder who's doing Christmas this year? I mean, I really miss the Snakes & Suits acoustic show, it's too bad the label tanked...just like the band." she added as an afterthought, although it made her cringe.

William smiled, putting an arm around her waist as he looked around for the car.

"Hey, hey - I'm still playing the show this year, it's just at Reggie's called something different now, that's all. I'm sure you could play too if you wanted, everyone by now knows that you're-"

She snorted, the irony of what he was talking about was too great to pass up. She paused, turning to look at him, smirking slightly.

"Why haven't you just had my last name changed already? I mean, I still have that ring you gave me after that whole halloween scare died down, but - Bill, it's been nearly eight and a half years, don't you think it's time?"

He grinned, "Which is exactly why I'm waiting. I've just...I had a feeling things are off again, like that autumn after your graduation. Sooner or later, we're going to have to get everyone together again, and the easiest way to do that is, firstly - have an occasion that warrants it. Secondly, I'd mention the oddities, but the priority right now would be to plan the first one. And on your part, you're going to need to go shopping, dear. The dresses you have right now aren't near the caliber of what you'll need to be wearing that day."

AJ nearly tripped with the realization of what he was implying.

"You can't just spring this on me. You haven't even formally propo-"

"I'd thought it had been the same as taking your mortality, seeing as that alone has kept you by my side over the years, but if it's formality you want, it's formality you'll have. I should note now that I'm aware you're expecting it however, so it won't seem as special."

She sighed.

"Even for a three hundred some year old vampire, your logic confounds me. Can we just go home already? I'm not exactly keen standing here when we're talking about something that would have made human me absolutely impossible to deal with..."

He nodded in agreement, holding out a hand to lead her towards the car some block and a half away, "As you wish, love."

"WILLIAM! S-STOP IT!" AJ whined, half laughing, half trying to be serious. The middle of a tickle fight wasn't exactly the best time to beg for mercy, she knew. As she'd predicted, the only thing that remained from her costume earlier that night were the minute details - the furry anklets and the clip in barette lion ears were the only recognizable thing on her at the moment, being the dress had been easily been destroyed (between the thin fabric and William's nails it hadn't been much of a contest) along with the elbow length faux fur gloves she'd tossed aside the minute she'd gotten in the door.

Have often did they really end up like this? It was too easy to say she'd become accustomed to the feel of just-out-of-the-dryer sheets against her skin, and the little flecks of red smudging on said sheets and her body just didn't bother her anymore. If anything, it had become fun to wake up and assess the damage - bite marks were the best next to the ever-obvious signs that circulation had been cut off.

Okay, so she wasn't totally a good girl, she never had been. One book series in highschool had changed all that, and she gladly had joined in, though in retrospect she'd had no idea what she was getting herself into.

"B-Baby...quit it...I'm sore...I did way too much dancing tonight..." she explained, trying to playfully push him away, surprised when he rolled over onto his back and sighed, laying out an arm for her to rest her neck on.

"Well what were you thinking? You know what late nights look like, Adeline..." he chastised, although she smiled.

"No. You don't know what you get yourself into half the time, sweetheart. You kiss my neck, it's done, no argument - we're fucking." she giggled, remembering the massively-noted tumblr text post she'd found a week prior.

"My, someone's straight to the point."

"Is there ever a time when I'm not?" She couldn't help smiling at the 'are-you-really-asking-that' look he gave her, but nonetheless he replied, "You're a lot more straightforward than you used to be when I met you, that's for sure. Went from a stuttering mess asking me to kiss you to being able to tell

me exactly how to make your head spin and your knees go weak in ten seconds flat."

"It is not ten seconds!" She protested, although she knew if he really wanted to he could make her melt in half that time.

She yawned, stretched her arms above her head and then licked her palm, trying to clear up one of the smudges just below her collarbone, wondering exactly how many sets of bite marks he'd left this time.

"Aw, does the poor tired little lion want a bath?" William teased, and for a moment, her non-beating heart flew into her throat as he leaned down to kiss her nose, lips leading down her jaw, then her neck, then she can't help giggling, thinking she know exactly where this is heading. Again. But damn, can't he tell she was tired? And if that wasn't enough, she was still on an adrenaline high that she didn't want to prolong, knowing too much of the hormone in her body could make her sick at times.

"Bill, if you lick me, I swear."

"Oh relax - the amount of caffeine and sugar you've had today is only going to make anything else worse, adrenalin or not."

"Don't forget the alcohol."

"And the alcohol, then, dear."

"Eight years and you still aren't over the fact that I can handle caffeine better than you. Alcohol's a different story, but still. At least tonight was fun, I just wished I coulda skyped Amelia and see what she did for Halloween, that's if she'd even have time - she's been SO busy lately in the 'real world' that I almost wish I'd joined in. But that's me being hypocritical, I do love just being with you - between the old days touring with you and the boys to it being just you and the new stuff, I think I've grown to like this lifestyle more than the thought of going to college..."

"You're going to go off on one of your tangents again, aren't you doll? Sleep, why don't you? There's a new song I want you to hear tomorrow, and I think I'll take up your offer on finally getting some certain jewelry checked out, being you won't quite badgering me, and maybe then we can gt around to that occasion."

She smiled, grabbing for his hands to press them to her cheeks, forgetting how the temperature difference might have bugged her long ago.

"Alright...I'll sleep. You better mean that though, about the store. And I hope you know I'm going to hold that against you until you actually propose, right?"

"Now come on, you really think I'd lie? I would've done it sooner this month given our anniversary was in the first week, but I had the tour with Motion City and there was hardly any time. I promise, you'll have new things to show off soon. And don't worry - you'll still be taken by surprise. But darling, it's time for bed." he repeated, sensing she was talking just to hear the sound of her own voice.

She huffed softly, then turned to curl into him, closing her eyes. Maybe that party had been a good thing after all - it had managed to completely tire

her out, even if the 'after party' as William had suggested had been most of the fun.


	2. Chapter 2

*BEEP BEEP BEEP* rang the alarm clock.

Amelia pushed the button to turn it off and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. The clock on the table read 4:15 a.m. Just enough time for a shower. She hopped out of bed and made her way into the shower. After showering and throwing her long brown hair into a ponytail, she put on her bright blue scrubs and had a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast with some coffee. Throwing some snacks and other nursing essentials in her bag, she walked out the door and got in her car. She drove to work in contemplative silence, wondering what kind of surprises her 12 hour shift would bring.

Amelia worked in the ER at the local hospital as an RN. After graduating from college, she moved out of Barrington to Chicago and got picked to work at a prestigious hospital. She and AJ had gone separate ways, AJ having chose to go off with her rockstar boyfriend, William Beckett. Though she hardly got to see her best friend, she still made time to Skype her weekly, keeping her updated on everything. When she had her weekly talks with AJ, it made Amelia's heart ache. She almost missed the craziness that had been her last year of high school and first year of college. All of that though, was behind her. She was a professional now, and didn't have time for any of that supernatural nonsense.

That's not to say that the occasional vampire attack victim didn't wander into her ER from time to time, because it did happen. She just chose to look the other way and pretend that she didn't recognize the bite marks. She also never used Waterbending anymore, choosing instead to heal her clients through therapeutic nursing care instead. She pushed all of these thoughts out of her head as she walked through the doors of the ER and prepared herself for another 12 hour shift, knowing AJ would probably try to get ahold of her later that night once again.

"OH THANK GOD YOU'RE ON! I was starting to think your internet was being a buttmunch again."

As if on cue, Amelia's laptop dinged with the skype call, the usually happy AJ even more ecstatic about something than she normally was. And knowing her, it was something dealing with music or something William had done.

"Oh settle down. Yeah, so sometimes the internet's terrible. What's got you in such a good mood? I haven't seen you this happy since Fall Out Boy came off hiatus that February!"

AJ immediately gigged at the mere mention of FOBruary, that day was forever burned into her memory, along with a certain March day but a month later.

"Somebody finally listened and took me shopping. About time, but LOOK LOOK LOOK!" The blonde yelled excitedly, waving her hand infront of the webcam, enough to where Amelia could notice right away the diamond solitaire ring.

She laughed, knowing AJ had to have him in the room, waiting for her reaction.

"William, you really bought her another one?"

Amelia rolled her eyes at the almost defensive response, "It wasn't another - this one's better, you saw the old one - it's older than your varsity jackets are, for both of you. And besides, I got her earrings, too."

"You didn't."

"Too late!" AJ squeaked, showing off what she could only to have Amelia sigh.

"You do realize you're turning into a material girl, right? With things like that, combined with the dresses from senior year, and then the-"

"Oh I'm not that bad anymore! Since the breakup I've been in jeans and vnecks - I mean, sure there's circle skirts and button down blouses in there somewhere but they're not the knee length dark dresses and bowtied stockings I used to wear! Speaking of which, I know we talk alot when we can, but you look really tired today...is everything going alright at the hospital?"

"Ugh. I guess. There's still bites coming in everyone now and then, but it's not like it used to be. I'm surprised I'm still awake, really. Twelve hour days can take a toll after a while."

"You're forgetting you're talking to vampires. Oh, and uh, I know this is out of left field, but, would you mind being the Maid of Honor? Seeing as this whole thing's being planned and all..."

"Oh god, we're not back to that summer when you had your entire dream wedding planned out, are we? I mean, I'm in, but- how the hell did it take him eight and a half years to say something?"

"See I told you she's say the same thing!" AJ'd turned around and yelled towards William, who only laughed.

"You act like my making you wait was a bad actually, - doll, move."

"Wait, oh, this is new - you want to-"

And before AJ could finish her sentence, William had turned the laptop around to face him. Though his hair was shorter than the last time she'd seen him face-to-face, the eyes were the same, although she could tell there was something troubling him.

"Evening, Amelia. I realize Adeline springing that question on you's probably got you a little confused, but to be honest - I think it's time for somebody finally got her way. As you know, we've all split - the boys are I haven't talked in years and it's the same with Gerard and his men from what I've heard. Easiest way to get everyone back together for even a little while is a wedding - and given her knack for planning things, it'll be put together soon."

Amelia's face paled at the mention of MCR. It had been three years since the breakup, and she knew Beckett and most of the Dandies didn't exactly enjoy putting up with the Jersey rockers during conferences. It almost made her wonder what Fall Out Boy and Simple Plan were up to.

"Wait. Wait. Wait. You can't just - something else is wrong. Do you really expect me to believe you want to just get everyone together for a wedding? Knowing you, you'd be fine with just your boys. But to mention MCR? If there's one thing I've learned, it's that involving them generally means the shit is going to hit the fan! If you think I'm going back to that world - AJ. I can't. I'm a professional now. I can't be running around chasing after things going bump in the night anymore! And as much as I'd love to stand up next to you that day - if it's all means to an end in some big end-of-the-world plan, I'm afraid you'll have to find somebody else."

"But RAE! You can't just up and call it on the pretext that you think the world's gonna en-" the blonde interjected, clearly having not expected her reaction.

"AJ...do you know how long I've tried to hid from that part of our past? You're my best friend - you know that. But given the last few times we've gotten together, things always go wrong. Just this one time I'd like to sit it out, okay? I gotta go get some sleep, I have to be up at 4 AM."

AJ snorted, obviously hurt, not thinking about what she was saying next. She wanted to hit the older girl where it would hurt, make her rethink what she'd said.

"Goodnight, Santi. Sweet dreams, better hope the nightmares don't come back and Carden bites you again. Bet you wish Seb's arms were still around you at night, too. Atleast I've got someone that hasn't forgotten about me."

Amelia was dead silent, didn't move for about ten seconds before reaching to click off the webcam.

Getting up from her desk, she sat on her bed and dropped her head into her hands, and everything came flooding back.

Spring break in Chicago - the concerts, the first conference. The first adventure after graduation when creepypastas had come to life just because of a stupid 11:11 wish. When that was over, it seemed like everything was going to be okay - college passed in the blink of an eye, band breakup news came and went, concert tickets were bought and sold anytime she couldn't make the show.

And her she was - her best friend was engaged and on the fast track to having the last name she'd wanted since middle school, having invited her to stand by her side on one of the most important days of her life, and Amelia had turned her down, because she was afraid of something happening in case everyone got together.

What kind of an idiot was she? She should've just said yes.

It would be nearly impossible to get everyone back together - William had just released his second full-length CD, Sisky had been playing with Say Anything but had since joined Carly Rae Jepsen, Butcher had quit Animal Upstairs and moved onto Whips, Chislett was off in Australia somewhere, and nobody knew what the fuck had happened to Mike Carden.

As far as Panic! went, Brendon still kept it going, although Spencer had checked into rehab for drug and substance abuse (that news broke the rest of the Dandies, Amelia recalled for a conversation with AJ when it had first happened), and Ryan and Jon had since formed The Young Veins. In their absence, they were replaced by Ian and Dallon Weekes (formerly of the Brobecks). Ian later left after touring for Vices and Virtues, and was replaced by Kenneth. The Young Veins had broken up in turn, Jon going solo like William right away, Ryan coming around with new music about four months after William's first full-length dropped.

MCR wasn't as hard to track - after Bob left suddenly with no real reason as to why, he went off into the woods somewhere and likewise disappeared. After him; the band had gone through two more drummers (Mike and Jarrod) before calling it quits, Gerard and Frank focusing on their families, Ray working on his own music and Mikey finding some new band to work with.

It hurt Amelia to think that almost every band she'd fangirled about with AJ through Barrington High's halls had called it, except for Fall Out Boy and Simple Plan. Seeing Simple Plan again live honestly was one of the few things Amelia looked forward to every year.

But still, as she changed into pajamas and put on her MP3 player to unwind for the night, she couldn't help thinking that maybe AJ had a point. Just getting everyone together didn't necessarily mean something was going to happen - even if it always seemed that way.


	3. Chapter 3

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Gerard Way was having trouble sleeping. Though he hardly needed to sleep because of his immortality, he liked it because it made him feel human again. This night though, sleep would not come. He was having a harder time than normal falling asleep. His brain and supernatural senses were both on overdrive and he couldn't explain why. He felt a sense of foreboding, which was usually never good. After tossing and turning for a few hours, he finally got up.

"Something wrong?" mumbled his wife Lindsay, half asleep.

"It's nothing. Just go back to sleep," he said as he walked quietly out of the room.

He walked downstairs. The kitchen clock said that it was almost 3:00 in the morning. Gerard sighed to himself. He grabbed a light jacket and opened the front door. He wanted to try and walk off the nervous energy. What he didn't expect to see on the other side of the door was his brother, Mikey, fist raised as if he were about to knock on the door.

"Mikey? What are you doing here?" he asked, clearly surprised to see his younger brother

Mikey shrugged. "I couldn't sleep."

"You couldn't sleep so you decided to come to LA?" Gerard asked, raising an eyebrow

Mikey nodded.

"All righty, then. I was just about to go on a walk. Care to join me?" he asked

Mikey nodded again and Gerard stepped out onto the porch. The two brothers took off into the night, walking along the mostly deserted streets.

"So, why are you awake?" Mikey asked

"Couldn't sleep either. Everything is on overdrive," he said.

"I know what you mean. It's like the universe is trying to tell us something. Do you think it means something?"

Gerard shrugged. "I'm not sure. I've only felt like this a few times, usually when the universe has managed to get itself thrown out of balance."

"Do you think that means another conference is in order?"

"Please, you know that wouldn't work. From what I've heard, everyone has gone their separate ways. I doubt we could even get everyone together. And even if we could, we'd have to stop everyone from killing each other," Gerard scoffed.

"Well, what if we start small? What if we only talk to Ray and Frank for now? I'm willing to bet that if we can sense that something is up, they're probably thinking the same thing. Come on, Gerard, at least give it a shot. You'll never know until you try" Mikey reasoned.

As much as he didn't want to admit it, Mikey was right.

"Fine, fine, we'll call them. Let's at least wait until morning, though." Gerard said, holding his hands up in defeat.

Mikey nodded. It was quiet again for a while before Mikey spoke.

"Hey Gee?"

"What's up, Mikey?"

"Race you back to your house?" Mikey asked

Gerard looked at the goofy grin that Mikey had plastered on his face and he smiled too.

"You're on!"

That morning, once Gerard's wife and daughter were awake, Gerard pulled out his phone and called Frank. He paced as he waited for Frank to pick up.

"Hello?" came the voice from the other end

"Hey Frank, it's Gerard," Gerard said, running his hand through his hair nervously.

"Hey man, how's it going? It's been a while!" said the guitarist, and Gerard could practically see the goofy grin on his face.

"Oh, it could be better," Gerard admitted.

"Is something wrong?"

"Well, how can I explain this? Lately, I've just been feeling really anxious and nervous," he started.

"Mhmm, and how does this make you feel?" Frank joked

Leave it to Frank to try and make a joke out of this.

"Fucker, I'm trying to be serious!" Gerard chastised and Frank laughed.

"Okay, okay, go on."

"Well, last night, I tried to sleep and all of my senses were on overdrive. I could hear everything, from Bandit's heartbeat to the ants crawling underneath the house. My mind just would not stop racing. It's almost like how Mikey gets antsy before a full moon. It sounds weird to say, but I feel like the universe is trying to warn me about something. Like something's coming and there's nothing we can do about it. Know what I mean?" he asked

"Yeah, I know what you mean."

"Really?" Gerard questioned

"I've felt it too. It's like there's something just on the outskirts, something bad that's trying to get in. And I don't know exactly what it is, but I know it isn't good."

"Exactly, and I'm starting to wonder if we should try to step in and correct whatever is upsetting the balance."

"You really think that trying to get everyone together is a good idea?" Frank asked, sounding skeptical

"Well, to be honest, no, but Mikey seems to think that if I just start out with us and then work our way up, we might be able to work something out."

Frank was quiet for a moment.

"Sure, I'll do it. Anything to put my mind at ease."

"Great, when can you come out to LA?"

"I can be out there later tonight."

"Awesome, see you then!"

"See ya," Frank said before hanging up.

"Well, that went well," Gerard said, taking a seat next to Mikey on the couch.

"Come on, it's Frank. Did you think it wouldn't?" Mikey replied, who was playing some video game

"Well, I just wasn't sure, you know? Did you call Ray?"

"Yeah, he'll be here some time tonight."

"Excellent," Gerard said, already feeling better about the situation.

After having convinced Lindsay to take Bandit out for a few hours while Gerard and the others talked, Gerard paced around the living room, waiting for Ray and Frank arrive.

"Dude, stop pacing. Seriously, I've never seen you this bad. What are you nervous about? It's just Ray and Frank. They're your friends," Mikey remarked from his place on the couch.

Gerard didn't get a chance to answer him before there was a knock on the door. Gerard opened it and standing on the other side were Frank and Ray. Gerard hugged them both and lead them into the living room where Mikey was sitting. Mikey got up and hugged them both as well. They all sat down and began to talk.

At first, it was nothing more than the usual pleasantries, significant others, and in Gerard and Frank's cases, children. After that, a silence fell between the four of them.

"Gerard, why did you call us here? I know we didn't come all the way out here just to have small talk," Ray said.

Gerard looked at Mikey who gave him a nod.

"Well, for a while now, at least a few months, I've been feeling really, really nervous. I can't sleep, I can barely eat, and I can't explain it. It feels like the universe is trying to tell me something, like something's about to happen and there's nothing we can do to stop it. The only other times I can remember feeling like this is when the universe throws itself off balance," Gerard said.

Ray nodded. "So you called us here to hopefully restore the balance?"

"Yeah, that's what I was hoping."

"Well, I don't think it's going to work because we're missing someone," Ray said.

"Do you think it's even worth trying to find him?" Gerard asked

"I doubt it," Frank said. "You remember the last thing he said to us? He said, 'If any of you manage to find me, I'll kill you all.' I doubt he'd be willing to help."

"Okay, so now what do we do? Do we have any idea of what we're up against?" Ray asked, bringing up a good point

Everyone was quiet for a moment as they tried to think of anything out of the ordinary that had happened lately. Of course, to break the silence, Gerard's phone buzzed.

"I realize everytime I post a tweet there's people just trying to say hi but this is ridiculous." He supplied, scrolling through his mentions, which again were a few miles long.

The only thing that caught his eye however, were the few direct messages on the upper right of the onto them, he had to do a double take – there was a name beside a picture he hadn't seen in years, although reasons why he'd even followed this person were lost to time.

"What's wrong? Somebody badgering you about the past again?" Frank asked, reaching for the phone, glad he wasn't as addicted to twitter.

"Little worse than the Greatest Hits CD, guys. Look who it is."

Turning the phone as he clicked on the first message, everyone's eyes widened and Mikey let out a growl at the profile picture that had been highlighted.

' rarityinempathy did you really think we'd forget after all these years? It'd be nice to get the gang together, seeing as I'm getting married soon. Killjoys never die, remember? And neither do we.'

"Holy fuck."


	4. Chapter 4

And in seconds, clocks rewind and memories of days of old come back.

Ray's the first one to speak after a few seconds, "Wasn't that the girl from-"

"With Beckett-" Frank added.

"And Amelia." Mikey.

"Years ago." Gerard stated, staring at his phone, trying to forget all the trouble the girl had gotten MCR into over the years she and her friend had known them.

How everyone had put everything behind them and moved on, finally.

But why the fuck was she contacting him now?

"So she's probably just trying to get to you, get under your skin and into your head, you know how the Dandies are." Frank offered, Gerard shaking his head.

"But they've – they're all like us. Beckett and his men broke up over five years ago. Panic! Shortly thereafter. There'd be no reason to get them all back together, even if Beckett wanted to."

"She did say she was getting married, so maybe the bastard's finally learned to keep her happy." Mikey pointed out.

"Or maybe it's a cover up?" Everyone looked at Ray.

"Gerard, you said you felt like the world was out of balance again. What if Beckett and his girl feel the

same? Who's to say they're not having the exact same conversation right now?"

"But back to Bob. If we do need to find him for this whole thing to work – guys, we're fucking lost."

Everyone knew that he was right. Bob was the kind of wizard that you didn't want for an enemy.

"Anyway, back to what we were saying. Has anything unusual been happening in Jersey? I mean, it can't be any weirder than normal," Gerard said.

Everyone chuckled.

"Well, there is one thing," Mikey started.

Everyone turned to look at him.

"What is it, Mikey?"

"Well, it was a few weeks ago. I was out in the woods hunting when I heard something. I heard this strange groaning noise. At first I tried to ignore it, but I couldn't. When I went to investigate, I saw what looked like a human, except it was all decayed and dead. I'm pretty sure it was a zombie."

"Really, Mikey? A zombie? Come on, man, I know you love zombies and all, but really?" Gerard asked, turning to look at his younger brother.

"Yeah, Mikey, there have been rumors of zombies for years, but there's never been any proof. You really think that the universe is trying to tell us to watch out for zombies?" Ray added

"Hey, I'm just saying it could happen!" Mikey replied stubbornly, crossing his arms

Before anyone else could say anything, Frank's phone began to ring. He looked at the caller I.D. and saw that it was his wife, Jamia.

"Hey J, what's up?" Frank asked

"Frank," came the whispered voice from the other end, "You need to come home!"

Frank could detect an abnormal amount of fear in his wife's voice.

"Jamia, what's wrong?" he asked, standing up

"Something's trying to get into the house!" she exclaimed in a loud whisper

"Something's trying to get into the house? Where are you? Where are the kids?" he asked

Everyone looked at him quizzically, so he put the phone on speaker.

"I'm upstairs in our room. The kids and the dogs are here with me."

"Okay, and what happened?"

"Well, I was in the kitchen, fixing lunch and all of the sudden, I heard this loud banging noise coming from the back door. When I looked out the window, I saw something trying to open the door! It was making this loud groaning noise. I didn't know what it was, so I took the kids upstairs. I can still hear it banging on the door, and every now and then, I hear another one come from the front door! Please, you need to come home right now!" she begged, on the verge of tears

"All right, I'm on my way. I love you," he said, hanging up.

"You guys up for going to Jersey?" Frank asked, looking at everyone

They all nodded. Frank and Gerard teleported everyone to Frank's house. They all stood in the middle of his living room and sure enough, he could hear two sets of noises, one coming from the back door, the other from the front door. Before they dealt with that, Frank led everyone upstairs and he knocked on the bedroom door.

"J, it's me. I brought some help," he said.

He heard shuffling from inside and his wife opened the door. Immediately, she threw her arms around him and hugged him.

"I'm so glad you're back," she whispered, holding him tight.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of the problem," he reassured her.

He hugged his kids and then turned to Gerard and the others, who were gathered in the doorway.

"Ray, I want you to stay with Jamia and the kids. Make sure nothing gets in here. Mikey and Gee, come with me," Frank said.

Ray nodded and walked into the room. He unclipped the blue bracelet that he wore around his wrist. The power of 10,000 men flowed through his veins and a pair of horns poked out from his hair.

"Don't worry guys, you'll be okay with me," he said, smiling.

Frank, Gerard, and Mikey walked out of the room. They walked towards the front door and listened. The banging and groaning was still happening.

"Ready?" Frank asked

The brothers nodded.

Frank threw open the door and wasn't expecting what he saw on the other side. On the other side was a little old lady with snow white hair. He recognized her as one of his neighbors. What he did not expect though, was to see her innards hanging out of the gash on her abdomen, her face stained with black blood. He could smell the decay on her and it was almost suffocating. He turned and looked at Mikey

"You just had to say zombies, didn't you?!" he exclaimed as the zombie lunged at him

He summoned a stream of fire, which hit her head on. Even though she was engulfed in flames, the zombie still advanced. Frank looked around if there was anything to use as a weapon. He knew of only one way to kill a zombie.

"Frank, duck!" yelled Gerard from behind him. Frank dropped to the ground and saw a poker from his fireplace go flying through the air like a javelin. The poker impaled itself in the zombie's forehead between its eyes and exited through the back of the head. The creature dropped to the ground and stopped moving. They dispatched the creature at the back door in the same manner. After getting rid of the creatures and locking both doors again, they went to collect Ray, Jamia, and the kids.

"What were they?" Jamia asked

"Well guys, I think what we're going to be dealing with here are zombies," Gerard declared.


	5. Chapter 5

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Amelia was just finishing the last of her charting for the day. Her watch read almost 8:00 a.m. Once she was done, she walked into the break room to collect her things. One of her nurses' aides popped her head in the room.

"Hey Amelia, there's some people here to see you," the girl said.

Amelia sighed. She really just wanted to go home. Figuring that it was probably the family of one of her patients, she put her things down and walked into the lobby. When she saw who was waiting for her, her heart dropped down to the soles of her feet. Waiting for her was none other than Sebastien Lefebvre and Chuck Comeau.

"Hey Amelia," they both greeted.

Amelia's heart started to race. She turned around and grabbed her things from the break room and walked out to her car. She completely ignored Chuck and Seb. To her displeasure, they followed her.

"Why are you ignoring us?" Chuck asked as she approached her car

"Because I'm really, really hoping that you guys aren't there. I hope I'm just so sleep-deprived that I'm just imagining the two of you."

"Nice to see you too," Seb replied, the hurt in his voice evident.

"Listen guys, I just got off of a 13 hour shift. I'm exhausted. I just want to go home and sleep. If you're really there and you aren't just figments of my imagination, come to this address tomorrow around 7 p.m. I'm going home now. Goodbye," she said, scrawling her address on a piece of paper.

She got in her car and quickly drove off. As they watched her car disappear down the street, Seb turned to Chuck.

"Hey Chuck, did we make a mistake in coming here?"

Amelia drove home at a faster than normal pace. She could not believe that that had just happened! She practically raced inside, slammed her door, and sank down to the ground. How had they found her?! She had done every possible thing to make sure she had become invisible, from changing usernames on social media sites, deleting their phone numbers, even moving to a different city!

"But why are they here? Why now?" she wondered to herself.

Deeply troubled, but too exhausted to think, she fell into a dreamless sleep that seemed to last forever.

Amelia woke up several hours later, feeling slightly refreshed. She picked herself up off of the ground and got in the shower. After cleaning all of the sweat and other bodily fluids she had managed to accumulate on herself the day before, she glanced at the clock. It was almost 7:00 p.m. Just as the clock struck seven, she heard a knocking at her door. Groaning internally, she got up and opened the door.

Standing on the other side were Chuck and Sebastien. Without a word, she ushered them inside. She offered them something to drink, but they declined.

They took seats in the living room. Amelia tried to put as much distance between herself and them as possible. She put her glass of water down on the coffee table. She avoided their gazes and remained quiet. After a few uncomfortable moments of silence, she posed the question that had been on her mind all night.

"How did you find me?"

Her voice sounded meek and afraid and she hated herself for it.

"Well, let's just say that we know some people," Chuck started. She barely gave him time to respond before she just blew up at them.

"What?! How can you say you "know some people"? Have you been spying on me? Why did you guys choose now to come back?"

"Well, you see," Seb started but Amelia immediately cut him off.

"Furthermore, I just don't understand how you could have found me! I made sure that I took every precaution so that you wouldn't find me! I changed my phone number, deleted my email address, deactivated my social media accounts, hell, I even moved out of that godforsaken town known as Barrington, just so that you wouldn't be able to find me again! But lo and behold, here you are, sitting in my living room!" she fumed

With each word, the water on the table was growing more and more agitated.

"Amelia, please, just listen to what we have to say."

"No, I won't listen to what you have to say, because I know exactly what you're going to say. Big words and recycled phrases about how the world has fallen out of balance again and you need my help to go and correct it! Well guess what guys? I can't help you! I've given up that life! I'm a professional now and I don't have time to be running around playing hero with you guys! I admit that that last year of high school and the first year of college was fun, but now it's time to be serious! Not that you guys would know what that's like, considering you've never actually had real jobs! You just get to play music all day and have fun!"

"Amelia, you're not being fair! Just listen to us!"

Finally reaching her breaking point, she took the water that was sitting in the glass on the table, froze it into tiny ice shards, and launched them at Chuck and Seb, neither of whom made a move to defend themselves. Before she could make another move, Chuck stood up and held out his hand.

At once, all of Amelia's limbs seized up. She couldn't move. He walked closer to her and forced her to sit back down on the couch. He sat down next to her, still focusing on keeping her immobile.

"Now Amelia, I'm going to let you go, but you have to promise me that you'll listen to what we have to say and you won't try and attack us again. Do you promise?"

"I promise," was all she said. She could feel the anger slowly dissipating as Chuck released his hold over her. He sat next to her, just in case.

"Now, Chuck was right. We do know some people that live here who have kept tabs on you. Don't forget that Patrick still lives here. He was the one who told us where you worked because he said that he's seen you around."

Amelia nodded. She had seen Patrick several times, but every time, she had ignored him.

"And you were also right in saying that things have gone out of balance. There's something coming, something dangerous, but we don't know what it is. Have you noticed anything strange at the hospital?"

"Well, even if I have noticed anything strange, I certainly couldn't tell you anything specific because of HIPAA laws. I also couldn't tell you that in my ER, I've seen people who have had awful, infected bite marks who became increasingly violent and had to be restrained or that the bite marks that I found looked like they came from human teeth, not vampire fangs or Lycan fangs. But I can't tell you any of that," she replied, trying to fight off a smile.

"Well, that certainly helps. We've been seeing a few cases of things like that in Montreal. There are rumors flying around of zombies, but that's been the rumor for years," Chuck explained.

Amelia snorted.

"Please, zombies? That couldn't possibly happen."

"I don't get it, Chuck. She's talking to a nearly 250 year-old werewolf and is sitting next to one of the strongest Waterbenders I know, yet she refuses to believe in zombies," Seb remarked, sticking his tongue out at Amelia.

She resisted the impulse to giggle. Internally, she cursed herself. She needed to be better at sticking to her guns!

"So, if it really is zombies, you guys are going to try and fight it off? How is that possible? Wouldn't you need everyone to be there? MCR, Panic, and TAI all broke up," Amelia stated.

"Yes, that's true, but we were thinking that if we started small and started with you, you could come with us to try and convince Gerard and the others," Chuck said.

Amelia thought about it for a moment. At that moment, her mind was made up.

"Listen guys, I'm sorry, but I just can't. I have a career to worry about now. My patients need me and I just can't pick up and go galavanting with you guys. I'm sorry."

"Wait, but, Amelia - " Seb started.

"I'm sorry. My mind is made up. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go to bed so that I can be up early to go to work," she said, standing up.

The two of them walked to the door.

"Please, Amelia, reconsider!" Seb exclaimed

"I'm sorry, Seb, my decision is final," she said, shutting the door in their faces.

She quickly walked into the bathroom, trying not to cry.

Seb stood outside the door, running his hands through his hair angrily.

"I don't get it, Chuck! I just don't get it! I thought she would be happy to see us! I didn't think this would happen," he said, gesturing aimlessly.

"I know what you mean, man, but we have to respect her decision for right now. Don't worry, I'm sure she'll come around," Chuck replied, leading Sebastien out of the apartment complex.

This was certainly not what Sebastien had expected, but, knowing there was nothing else he could do, he allowed Chuck to lead him out of the apartment.

The two of them walked back to the hotel that they were sharing with David, Pierre, and Jeff. Everyone had come along because they had expected things to go better than they had.

"How did things go?" David asked as he narrowly avoided getting hit in the face with a pillow by Pierre.

"Dude, sit down! I can't see the TV!" Pierre exclaimed as he launched another pillow at the Airbender.

David dodged the pillow and used a current of air to throw it back at Pierre, who then countered and threw it back at David. Unfortunately for both of them, the pillow ended up hitting Sebastien, who was in no mood to deal with their shit. His fingernails extended into claws and he shredded the pillow in midair. The two of them instantly fell silent.

"Judging by the fact that Amelia isn't with us, it didn't go well," Seb replied, his voice low and serious. He grabbed his guitar from the case and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

"Jeeze, what happened?" Jeff asked

"Well, let's just say things didn't go like we planned. She didn't even consider coming with us, which I completely understand. She's got a job and a life now. It's asking an awful lot of her to suddenly uproot everything she's worked so hard for and come with us just because we THINK something bad is going to happen," Chuck explained.

"But something is going to happen. I can feel it!" David said, sitting down next to Pierre.

"Well, until something happens, I don't think there's anything we can do to convince Amelia otherwise. I just hope it doesn't come to that," Chuck said.

"Have you thought of contacting Gerard or anyone else?" Jeff asked

Chuck shook his head. "Now that everyone has gone their separate ways, I doubt that trying to contact any of them would be a good idea. I guess all we can do is just wait and see what happens."

Amelia, meanwhile, was sitting in the bathroom, crying and feeling angry at herself for reacting in such a way. Truth be told, it really hurt her to see Seb so distraught, but Amelia was a professional now! She was dedicated to her patients and that's how it had to stay. With a heavy heart, she cleaned herself up and went to bed, but it was hard to do when all she could see were Sebastien's sad eyes.

Two weeks had passed since Amelia had seen Chuck and Sebastien and things had returned to normal - well as normal as they could be for an ER nurse like Amelia. Lately, there had been more people coming in with the strange bite marks and most of them had been violent enough to require restraints and heavy sedation. It made no sense to anyone at the hospital. Amelia kept thinking about why Seb and Chuck had shown up. She thought back to shortly after she had met them, way back during Spring Break of senior year. She and Chuck had been talking during one of their training sessions.

"Hey Chuck, so what are these conferences that I keep hearing you guys talk about?"

"Well, we're kind of like the police. We were chosen to keep the balance between the mortal and supernatural worlds. We make sure that there is balance and that no one has too much power. In the case of Beckett and his men causing trouble, that throws everything off balance. If people were to ever find out about the supernatural world, it would be disastrous, so we're trying to make sure that doesn't happen. Of course, that includes you girls. We didn't expect you guys to get involved. Since nothing major has happened in a while, we were just planning on meeting with Beckett and his men and Gerard and his friends, discussing what's been happening, resolve any problems, and then go on our way, but now we have to figure out what to do with you guys."

"How do you guys know if something has gone off balance?"

"Well, people like Sebastien and Gerard, they have kind of a sixth sense for this kind of thing. They can like, sense the evil, if that makes any sense. That lets us know that something is amiss, and then we can step in and try to correct whatever is wrong, even if that means killing other creatures. Our motto is kind of like, do whatever it takes to keep the peace. Balance must be maintained at all times."

"So, basically you guys just show up whenever there's trouble and save the day?" she had asked

"Yeah, pretty much," Chuck replied, laughing.

Amelia could only pray that nothing bad was going to happen.

Of course, her prayers went unanswered. One morning, as she was driving to work, her phone started ringing. As she sat at a red light, she looked at the number. She recognized it as the hospital number. She picked it up.

"Hello, this is Amelia Clearwater."

"Hey Amelia, this is Jenny. Listen, one of your aides, Rosie, is sitting in the breakroom having a panic attack."

Jenny was one of her fellow nurses and Rosie was one of Amelia's nurse's aides.

"What's going on?"

"I don't know. She had to go deliver something to the linen room and when she came back upstairs, she was freaking out about something and of course, since she's all excited, she's babbling in Spanish and I have no idea what she's saying. How close are you?"

"Pulling into the parking lot right now. I'll be right up."

"Okay, see you soon."

Amelia parked her car, grabbed her stuff, and headed into the ER. Upon seeing her, Jenny, the nurse who had called her, jumped up from the nurses station.

"Where's Rosie?" Amelia asked

"In here," Jenny said, leading Amelia to the breakroom.

Amelia set her stuff down and approached Rosie, a nice girl of 19 who was sitting in a chair, her head in her hands, muttering to herself.

"Rosie, ¿sientes bien?" she asked, putting her hand on the girl's shoulder.

"No, no yo siento bien, señorita Amelia! No yo siento bien!"

"¿Puedes decirme lo que pasó?" Amelia asked as she gave the girl a tissue.

Rosie rubbed her eyes with the tissue and began a tearful explanation of what had happened.

"Pues, fui al sótano porque tenía que poner la ropa de cama sucia en la lavadora. Cuando caminé al ascensor, lo ví!"

"¿Qué viste?"

"Ví un zombi!"

"Un zombi? Cómo sabías que fue un zombi?"

"Pues, lo pareció como un humano, pero tenía mucha sangre negro en el cuerpo y estaba gimiendo. También, creo que este hombre fue Sr. Gonzalez y estaba caminando"

"Sr. Gonzalez? Es imposible que veas Sr. Gonzalez. Sr. Gonzalez se murió en el lunes."

"¡YO SÉ LO QUE VÍ! ¿POR QUÉ NADIE ME CREE?!"

"Yo te creo," Amelia said, but Rosie didn't seem to hear her because she was too busy sobbing.

"Rosie...Rosie...ROSIE!" Amelia finally yelled, causing the shocked girl to look at her.

"Rosie, no sé lo que viste, pero ahora, no creo que debas trabajar. Debes ir a casa y dormir. ¿Te gustaría ir a casa?"

Rosie stopped crying and shook her head.

"Pues, vuelva a su casa y descansar. Nos vemos el sábado."

"Gracias, señorita Amelia. Que tenga un buen día."

"Y tú también. Vaya con Dios."

After Rosie had collected her things, Amelia walked back out to the nurses station.

"Well?" Jenny asked

"I sent Rosie home. She seems to think that when she was in the basement putting the dirty laundry in the washing machine, she saw a man who had died on Monday. She seemed pretty shaken up, so I sent her home. Pass me the phone," Amelia explained.

She punched in a few numbers and waited.

"Hey George, it's Amelia, one of the ER nurses. One of my aides seems to think she saw someone walking around the basement earlier. Could you and your guys check it out and get back to me? Thanks."

George was one of the security personnel at the hospital. Amelia sat down with her charts and tried to mentally prepare her for the long day ahead.

After helping distribute some meds to some clients and catching up on her charting from the day before, the phone rang.

"Hey Amelia, it's George. My boys and I checked the entire basement. There was nobody down there, so I'm not sure what your aide saw. We did note something a little strange, though."

"Really? What happened?"

"Well, when we went down in the morgue, we heard strange noises every so often, but we didn't find anything. We also noticed that some of the slabs were missing bodies."

"Missing bodies?"

"Yeah, it was weird. They would have a nametag, a cause of death and everything, but the body was missing."

"That's pretty weird. Have you notified the director?"

"Yeah, we just put a call in."

"All right. Well, thanks for checking on that for me."

"Any time."

Amelia hung up the phone and not a moment too soon.


	6. Chapter 6

Just as Amelia went to walk back to the nurse's station, Jenny called to her.

"Hey Amelia, we're gonna need you! Just got a call from the paramedics. We have a Code 9 coming in five minutes, so get ready!"

Amelia sighed internally. A Code 9 meant that there were multiple victims which was never a good sign.

"Do we know what from?" she asked as she washed her hands and donned gloves.

"Multiple car pileup on the freeway," Jenny replied, doing the same.

Amelia used some therapeutic breathing techniques that Chuck had taught her in order to calm herself before the victims arrived. This was going to require the utmost concentration. Before she knew it, the stretchers came rolling in. There were around 15 victims in all. Some were worse than others. A few only had minor injuries, but then there were people missing appendages, bleeding everywhere. Amelia ran around, starting IVs, tending to wounds, and trying to stay calm. The ones that were worse off were also extremely violent, requiring heavy sedation and full body restraints. To Amelia's displeasure, those had little effect. No matter what she did, all of the victims kept moaning and groaning. Amelia and the other staff were at their wits end after working on the patients for almost an hour. What was worse, the ones who had to be sedated were growing antsier, the sedatives having no effect.

"Can't you just give them any more sedatives?!" Amelia asked in frustration

"You know I can't do that! Any more of that stuff and they'll go into severe respiratory depression!" the doctor yelled back at her

"Oh yeah, they're clearly in danger of that," she muttered under her breath as she turned around to tend to another patient.

Finally, the straw came that broke the camel's back. One of the victims, who moments before had been laying flat on one of the hospital beds, suddenly sat up and lunged at one of the nurses, managing to take a chunk out of her arm. The others soon followed suit.

Amelia was beyond freaked out. What the hell was going on?! She walked away, hoping to get to a phone to call security. Before she could get very far, a hand shot out and grabbed her arm. She turned to look and it was one of the victims, a boy of about 17 with dark hair and eyes. His eyes had a crazed look to them and she noticed that the blood that stained his body was a dark black color. Just as he opened his mouth and appeared ready to attack Amelia, something came out of nowhere and literally ripped the arm off of the person. Black blood spilled everywhere.

Amelia looked up to see who had saved her and wasn't really surprised to see Sebastien standing there, his face contorted in a snarl.

"You okay? I figured there would be trouble today, so I followed you to work," he explained, noting Amelia's shocked expression.

Before she could reply, one of the doctors came charging over.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? WHO ARE YOU AND HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?!" he demanded, his face turning red as a tomato

Sebastien grabbed the doctor by the lapels and pulled him close.

"My name is not important right now, but you need to listen to me. All of you are in danger right now. These people aren't ordinary people any more. I think they're zombies - " he started.

"Zombies? You've got to be fucking kidding me. There's no way that zombies or anything like that could exist."

Seb growled and bared his razor sharp teeth. "If that's the case, then tell me why I can hear your heart hammering in your chest. Tell me why I can practically smell the fear radiating from every pore."

Before he could say anything else, there was a scream as one of the aides was bitten by several of these creatures. Everyone turned to look at the sound of the scream. Several people tried to rush in, but they were useless. Eventually, the aide was silent, laying unmoving on the ground. To the horror of everyone watching, they watched as the body began to twitch slightly as though it were still alive. Black blood flowed from the bite wounds and the aide made a sort of groaning noise, mimicking the noise being made by the other patients.

Seb looked down at the cowering man in front of him. His lips were moving fast in some kind of silent prayer.

"Now do you believe me?" Seb asked

"What do I have to do?" he replied

"Lock down the hospital. Make sure that nothing gets in or out of the hospital. As for me, I'm taking Amelia with me when I go. May God be with you," Seb said as he let the doctor go. The doctor stood, frozen in place amidst all of the chaos.

"Didn't you hear me?! LOCK DOWN THE HOSPITAL!" Seb shouted and the doctor ran as fast as he could to the nurses station to use the phone.

Seb grabbed Amelia's hand and took off running. They ran back to the breakroom to collect Amelia's things and then ran outside. When Amelia tried to lead him to where she had parked, he shook his head.

"Trust me, if this is going where I think it's going, cars aren't going to be of much use," he explained when she gave him a look as a protest.

They first stopped at Amelia's apartment to collect "only the necessities" as Seb had explained. He didn't say much than that. With a huff, Amelia changed out of her scrubs and into some pants, boots, and a long sleeved shirt. She began to throw things into a duffel bag. As she looked around her room, her eyes fell on the water skin that Chuck had given her. She grabbed it and walked out of her apartment, Seb in tow. He took her to the hotel where he was staying. Upon walking into the room with Seb, she was scooped up into a giant hug from David.

"Amelia, great to see you!" he laughed as he picked her up and spun her around.

"Hi David," she replied, not quite sure of how to feel.

"Is something wrong?" Pierre asked

"I just...I never thought I would have to see you guys again. I thought I put that all behind me, and yet, here we are," she replied, looking down at the ground.

"You know why we're here, though, right?" Jeff asked

"Well, I can only assume that something is going wrong and you guys have to fix it and based on what happened at the hospital, I guess that's true."

"What happened at the hospital?" Chuck wondered

"Well, it was like any other normal day in the ER. It was pretty busy. All of the sudden, we got a call saying that there were multiple victims from a multi car pileup on the freeway. It was difficult to try and stabilize everyone. It was weird though, because these patients were all pretty violent and they were bleeding black blood. I've never seen anything like it. Anyway, one of the patients bit one of the aides, and I'm pretty sure that I saw that same aide regenerate," she explained.

"Regenerate? You don't mean like zombies, do you?" Pierre asked

Amelia nodded.

"I think so. Anyway, when one tried attacking me, Seb stepped in and then managed to convince one of the doctors to lock down the hospital. I don't know what's going on. I should be back at the hospital, helping my patients and my friends, not sitting here getting ready to go play hero with you guys!" she fumed

Seb had walked away into the other room.

"Hey guys, I think you're going to want to see this!" he shouted

The five of them walked into the adjacent room and looked at the television, which was tuned to the local news station.

"Reports are now coming in from the Chicago Metropolitan Hospital of a supposed zombie outbreak and the city is declaring a state of emergency. People are advised to stay inside and to be wary of any family or friends who have recently died. Be on the lookout for people covered in black blood who are extremely violent. Please stay tuned. We will update you as more information becomes available."

Seb turned off the TV and turned to look at everyone.

"Well guys, looks like we're dealing with zombies. What should we do? David, don't even think about it," he said, noticing the gleam in the Airbender's eyes.

"Well, somehow, we need to try and fix this problem. I have no idea how, though," Chuck said.

"Have you thought of contacting Gerard or anything like that?" Amelia asked

"Well, since everyone has gone their separate ways, it's been difficult to keep track of everyone," Pierre explained.

"Wait, I still have Mikey's number. Let me try calling," Seb said as he took his phone out of his pocket.


	7. Chapter 7

Back in LA, things had gone back to normal. Frank and Ray had both gone back to Jersey but they promised they would let Gerard know if there was any more activity with the zombies. Mikey had been staying with Gerard for the past few days. They were all sitting down to a nice dinner that Gerard's wife had made. In the middle of dinner, Mikey's phone began to ring. He looked at the caller ID and swore under his breath.

"Holy shit, no way," he muttered.

"Who's calling?" Gerard asked

"Someone who wouldn't be calling unless something was wrong. It's Sebastien," he replied as he stood up.

"Hello? Hi Seb, what's up? Really? What? Are you kidding me? Oh man. Gee, you're gonna want to hear this," Mikey said as he walked out of the room. Gerard followed him into the living room.

Mikey put his phone on speaker.

"Okay Seb, tell Gerard exactly what you told me."

"Hi Gerard. So anyway, this is going to sound crazy, but I think the Universe has managed to throw itself off balance again. Lately, I've been feeling really on edge and nervous and I usually only feel like that when something bad is going to happen," he started.

"I know what you mean. Mikey and I have felt the same way."

"I figured that might be a clue, you know? So I went and found Amelia again. You still remember her, right?"

"Yeah, the Waterbender who had the friend who got caught up with Beckett."

"Yeah. Anyway, she works at a hospital now and today I followed her because I knew something was going to happen, and something did. I'm pretty sure we're dealing with zombies. A lot of her patients had this black blood oozing from their wounds and they were really violent," he finished.

The two brothers exchanged glances.

"Well, Seb, you're in good company, because we had our own experience with zombies not too long ago. A few were trying to get into Frank's house back in Jersey. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Mikey asked

"I think it's time we get everyone together again. Looks like the world needs saving," Seb replied.

"Now wait a minute, Seb. I need to think this through," Gerard said.

Seb made a noise of discontent.

"Come on man, I have a family to think about now! I can't just run off to save the world without making sure they're safe first," Gerard protested.

"Gee, you could always send them to Budapest to stay with Lucian. We can do the same for Frank. Think about it. There would be no safer place for them to be. Lucian would do anything to help me out and he would make sure they they stay safe," Mikey interjected.

"I suppose. Seb, I'll need to talk it over with my wife and we'll need to talk it over with Frank and his family. I can let you know by tomorrow what my plans are. That's the best I can do right now," Gerard said.

"All right, that's fine. Also, if you get the chance, turn on the news. Chicago just declared a state of emergency and I can imagine the rest of the country isn't far behind."

"Will do. I'll call you back tomorrow."

"Okay, bye," Seb replied as he hung up.

Gerard looked at Mikey. "How am I going to be able to tell Lindsay?"

"Tell Lindsay what?" asked Gerard's wife, who walked in the room, her daughter in tow

Gerard took a deep breath and recounted everything that Sebastien had told him. Instead of saying anything, Lindsay instead crossed the room and hugged Gerard.

"Listen, I know that this is important to you and I know that you have to be the one who helps save the world. I'm willing to do whatever I can to help you, even if it means staying out of the way for a while. Hey kiddo, do you feel like going on a trip?" Lindsay asked her daughter as she led her out of the room

"Well, that was easier than I expected. I'll call Frank and Ray and let them know what's going on. You call Lucian and see if you can make this whole thing happen," Gerard said, pulling out his phone.

Mikey nodded and grabbed his phone and walked outside. He dialed the long distance number and waited for it to connect.

"Hey Nina, it's Mikey. Is Lucian available? Thanks. Hey Lucian, it's Mikey," he said once it had connected.

"Mikey, my boy, how are you? It's been a while," said the Lycan leader.

"Well, things were okay, but now they aren't. I don't know what it's like over in Europe, but over here in the States, we have a pandemic developing."

"A pandemic? What kind of pandemic?"

"This is going to sound ridiculous, but I'm pretty sure it's zombies."

"I see. And what do you need me to do?"

"Well you see, I'm one of the people who is in charge of fixing this problem along with my brother and several of my friends. My brother and one of my friends now have families to worry about and with the impending situation, they're going to have to leave their families behind. We want to ensure their safety, so I was hoping that I could send them to Budapest, to be guarded by you and the others."

Lucian was silent. Mikey Way was one of his most trusted Lycans and he had always managed to stay loyal to him. Lucian could tell that Mikey really cared about his friends as well.

"Of course I would be willing to take them in. I can arrange to meet you in a day's time. Where are you staying?"

Mikey breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'm staying in Los Angeles with my brother. Thank you so much!"

"You're welcome, my boy. I'll see you then."

"Thank you again," Mikey said before hanging up.

He walked back in and found Gerard, who was clearing dishes from the table.

"It's all set. Lucian is willing to take care of everyone. They will go with him to Budapest until this whole thing blows over," Mikey said as he went to help Gerard.

"Awesome! Frank is cool with the idea too, so he'll be over some time later tonight. I'll call Seb back tomorrow."

"Sounds good," Mikey agreed.

Shortly after the brothers finished the dishes, Gerard went to help his wife and daughter pack, leaving Mikey alone with his thoughts. The fact that this was actually happening, that zombies were threatening to take over was both amazing and at the same time, ridiculous. Never in all of his 215 years did Mikey think that he would ever have to deal with zombies.

He didn't have long with his thoughts, before a knock came at the door. Mikey answered it and was met with the sight of Frank and his family. He eagerly welcomed them in. Shortly thereafter, Gerard and his family came back downstairs. As the children scampered off to play, the adults settled in to talk.

"So Mikey, can you explain more of what's going to happen to us?" asked Frank's wife, Jamia.

"Well, Lucian is one of 12 Lycan leaders throughout the world and it's him who I usually answer to. He's the one who helped me learn to control my transformations, things like that. I've known him for most of my life. Anyway, he lives in Budapest in a sort of compound. It's one of the safest places in the world and there's no one that I would feel better about putting you guys with. Since we need to go and correct the upset that the world is facing, we need to make sure that you are safe. Lucian should arrive some time tomorrow and take you back to Budapest," Mikey explained.

"So how long are we going to be there?" Lindsay asked

"I'm not sure. However long it takes us to get rid of the problem," Mikey shrugged.

After talking amongst themselves for a while, the kids were put to bed and everyone decided to retire to bed in anticipation of the long journey tomorrow.

The next day, around midday, there was a knock on the door. Mikey opened the door and on the other side stood Lucian. He embraced the older Lycan and let him inside.

Both Frank and Gerard's families stood there with their belongings.

"Hello. I am Lucian. You are the ones who will be coming with me?" he asked

"Yes, that's correct," Lindsay replied.

"Is everything ready to go?" Lucian asked

Everyone nodded.

"Let's be on our way, then. It's a long way back to Budapest."

Gerard scooped up his daughter and hugged both her and Lindsay.

"Now kiddo, you gotta make sure that you listen to Mommy, okay? This is only for a little while until me and Uncle Mikey go and fix some things," Gerard said, hugging them both tight.

"J, stay safe. Kids, listen to your mother. I'll see you guys soon. I love you guys," Frank said, hugging his children and kissing his wife.

"Lucian, thank you again for doing this. I really appreciate it," Mikey said.

"It's no problem, my boy. I would do anything for you. See to it that this problem gets fixed and call me once it's safe to bring them back," the elder Lycan replied.

Mikey nodded, and after a few more goodbyes, Lucian departed with Frank and Gerard's families in tow.

Though it hurt both Frank and Gerard to see them go, they knew it was for the best. Now they had to focus on the task at hand.

"Okay, so I'm going to call Sebastien and find out where they are and what's going on. Frank, you go back to Jersey and get Ray," Gerard said, pulling out his phone.

Frank nodded, and in the blink of an eye, he had disappeared.

Gerard dialed Seb's number and waited for him to pick up.

"Hey Seb, it's Gerard. Listen, I've taken care of my family situation, so now you can count us in. When do you want us to meet you in Chicago? All right, we'll see you later tonight, then."


	8. Chapter 8

Back in Chicago, things were getting bad. They could see the ensuing chaos from their hotel window. The news reports didn't make it any better. It seemed that the world was crumbling around them and there was nothing they could do about it. Amelia had spent the majority of the day sulking about her current predicament.

"You know, you're going to have to stop feeling sorry for yourself at some point. Whether you like it or not, you're stuck with us!" David remarked as he drank a glass of water. Amelia glared at him and with a wave of her hand, she froze the water in the glass, freezing David's mouth to the glass. He sputtered out curses in an unintelligible way.

"Oh shut up. Whenever I go to work, it's always about my patients and it's never about me. The least you can do is let me enjoy this pity party," she remarked.

David continued to walk around the room, flailing his arms until Chuck unfroze the water.

"Amelia, come with me," Chuck said, grabbing something from his coat and gesturing for Amelia to follow him.

"Why should I?" she asked, and before she knew what was happening, she felt her limbs seize up as Chuck forced her to stand.

"Okay okay, I'm coming. Sheesh, you don't have to use bloodbending every time you want to make a point," she grumbled as she followed Chuck, already having an idea of where they were going.

It was no surprise that the two Waterbenders ended up at the hotel pool.

"Why are we here?" she asked

"Because," he replied as he began to move the water in the pool back and forth, "you seem to have forgotten everything I taught you, so this is a little refresher course to try and get you back on track. Now, I want you to just push and pull the water."

Reluctantly, Amelia raised her arms in front of her and copied Chuck's movements, letting the water flow towards her, and then pushing it away.

"Focus on your breath. Just let the energy flow, just like the water."

She concentrated on her breathing, finding herself becoming more calm and more willing to let go with each breath.

After a few moments, they both stopped.

"Feel better?" Chuck asked

"Yeah," Amelia replied with a grin.

"Good. Now that you're nice and relaxed, it's time to test your fighting abilities!" Chuck declared as he shot a wave of water at Amelia. Amelia laughed and froze the water before it had a chance to splash her. Then, she took the frozen water, liquified it, and then turned it into a gas, obscuring the area.

When she heard the sound of footsteps approaching from her left, she gathered up the steam, turned it back into water, then to ice, and sent shards of ice flying at Chuck.

Chuck countered by turning the water to liquid and sending it back at Amelia, who dodged it. Using the water on the ground to her advantage, she ran at Chuck and froze the water beneath his feet, causing him to slip and fall.

"Nice one, but try this!" Chuck remarked as he made a stream of water crawl up Amelia's leg and then froze it, effectively tripping her.

She easily unfroze the water and concentrated two streams in her hand and froze them into solid ice. She charged at Chuck, aiming to use the two icicles like swords.

The two went on like this for almost an hour, each using the element to their advantage. By the time they were done, Amelia was sweaty, but she had to admit, she was a lot happier than she had been in recent months. When she asked Chuck why that was, he was happy to explain.

"Well, much like letting stress build up can cause adverse reactions, the same is true with chi, the energy source that helps us bend. By trying to repress your Waterbending nature, it caused a blockage of chi, which probably contributed to the negative feelings. Doing things like what we just did is a way of getting rid of the blockage. Make sense?" he asked

"Yeah, I think so," she replied as the two walked back to the room.

They all decided to order room service as they waited for Gerard and the others. Just as the sun began to set, there was a knock on the door. Seb got up and answered it. It was Gerard, Mikey, Ray, and Frank.

"Hey guys, come on in," Seb said, welcoming them in.

Hellos and hugs were exchanged all around. For Amelia, it felt weird to be seeing them again.

"So, what kind of a problem are we looking at?" Ray asked

"Well, the whole city is being shut down in an effort to try and quarantine the area and basically everything is going to shit," David remarked.

"Do you know how this all started?" Gerard asked

"Well, I think I have an idea," Amelia replied. Everyone turned to look at her.

"You see, I'm a registered nurse at the Chicago Metropolitan Hospital and over the past month, I've been seeing patients in my ER that have been acting strangely. A lot of the early ones were extremely violent, requiring heavy sedation and four-point restraints. At first, I thought it was something as simple as drug problems. Chicago is no stranger to that, and new kinds of street drugs are being discovered every day. Then, I started to see it as something more serious, as I noticed that the victims, in addition to being incredibly violent, also had this black substance on their bodies. It didn't quite look like blood. Anyway, yesterday when I went into work, one of my nurse aides was having a panic attack, saying something about seeing a dead man walk around. I asked hospital security to check it out, and while they said they didn't see anyone walking, they noticed that bodies were missing. Fast forward about two hours after and we get a call saying that there was a multiple car pileup and we were expecting a lot of victims. All of these victims were extremely violent. Restraints and sedation did nothing and again, they had that same black blood. I saw one of the patients take a chunk out of a nurse's arm, and one of them would have gotten me too, if Seb hadn't intervened. I even saw one of my coworkers reanimate. I'd say it's definitely zombies, but I have no idea how or why it started," Amelia stated.

"All right, well at least that gives us something to go off of. How much do you guys know about zombies?" Gerard asked

"To be honest, not that much. We know that a zombie was someone who was once living and is now dead and we know that they can be killed by a blow to the head that severs the brainstem. Other than that, we don't know anything," Seb admitted.

"Well, here, I'll give you a rundown," Mikey piped up.

Gerard sighed and gave Mikey a look.

"Just go easy on them, okay, Mikey? Don't overload them with information," he said, knowing his brother's penchant for zombies and folklore.

"Don't worry, I won't. So you were right in saying that the zombie was someone who was once living who is now dead. A zombie can be created through two ways, at least that I know of. There have been instances of a sort of zombie virus throughout history. There are also necromancers, people who are gifted with the ability to control the dead. Since we don't know what has caused this outbreak, we have to assume that it's either of those things. You were also right in saying that you have to destroy the brain to get rid of the creatures. Sharp objects driven through the skull are good; so are guns. There are also several types of zombies, each with different abilities. There are the slow zombies as seen in the original Night of the Living Dead movie or there are the fast zombies as seen in the Dawn of the Dead movie or the Walking Dead. It would be easier if we knew which kind we were facing," Mikey finished.

"Well, what are we going to do as far as weapons? None of us own guns, and I don't know how effective the four elements are going to be," Amelia said, bringing up a good point.

"See, you would think that, but each element can serve its own purpose. I'm sure that Pierre could form the earth into spikes and then destroy the zombie that way, much like you or Chuck could use water in the same way. Air and fire would be useful in containing the zombies or making sure they go where we need them to," Mikey replied, his brain working on overdrive.

"All right, so basically all we need to do is find whatever is causing this and then get rid of it and everything should go back to normal?" Chuck asked

"In theory. That's what we've always done in the past," Gerard said.

"Well, the only way that we're going to find out what we're up against is to go out there and experience it for ourselves. Let's patrol around for a while, see what we find. Then we can figure out what to do from there," Mikey decided.

"Wait, I just thought of something. For this to work, aren't you guys going to need William and his men?" Amelia wondered

Everyone seemed to bristle at her statement.

"If we get this done fast enough, we shouldn't need his help," Frank scoffed

"Got it. Just warning you guys, AJ is going to call me," Amelia said as she plugged in her phone.


	9. Chapter 9

*Earlier that day*

"You have got to be kidding me. There is no way I'm sleeping out in the dar-" AJ started, pacing the living room, still irked that the first thing William thinks of that would be somewhat fun is...camping. In the same woods that The Rake had almost killed them all in, but that wasn't the point.

"Hey, as I recall, you were quite impatient when it came to a few Halloweens ago...granted it wasn't camping out, but still the idea of making out in a dark forest did get to you." he reminded her with a smile, giving up on trying to stuff yet another sweatshirt into the backpack on the couch, never minding the blood bags at the bottom of it.

"I was nineteen and a..." she paused, trying to figure out how to not insult herself, "A little clingy as far as physical contact went. I'm almost twenty-eight. I think I've learned how to control myself."

A loud meow from the counter caused the blonde to turn, glaring at the patched American shorthair who pawed the air as if to protest.

"Oh shush Scully. You don't get to answer for him!"

William smiled.

"Your killing tendencies may be better controlled than most vampires your age, but that's about the only control you have, dear."

"HEY!" And without another word, she'd knocked the backpack off the couch and tackled him in the same move, knowing she was only proving his point as she straddled him and immediately struggled to undo his tie, their lips locked.

He didn't bother to try and stop her, it'd only mean she'd hurt herself somehow. Last time this had happened, her foot had got caught between the arm and the cushion, and when he tried to flip them around she nearly would have snapped her ankle in a clean cut.

She moaned softly as his lips moved to her neck, fangs just barely grazing against her skin, one of his hands moving to her hair.

Of course, when she gave up trying to unbutton the collared shirt and instead tore it to make the buttons pop before nimble fingers moved to his belt, that's when he acted, one hand grabbing her wrist, the other sliding under her shirt to rack his nails against her stomach, knowing it'd make her stop.

She broke the kiss with a startled whimper, glaring as he leaned up to kiss her nose.

"Ah ah doll. That is what the tent's for."

She smirked, mind on autopilot, snorting when she thought of something her high-school self would have said.

"Ooohh. Heh, now I get it. But still...why do we have to go? It's not like the boys would distract us anyways anymore...come to think of it, it'd be nice to see some of them again."

"Well, yeah. I know, so I sort of...well, put it this way - it's not just us camping tonight."

Her eyes widened.

"Wait. Who did you even manage to talk to? It's been years, baby. I know we all use twitter to keep contact, but even then-"

"You're forgetting some of the recent shows you've been to. As I recall, you were humming that annoying 'call me maybe' for a good month or so. And we both know who plays with her now..."

"SISKY BIZ?! HOW'D YOU EVEN MANAGE- OH MY GOD IT'D BE GREAT TO-I CAN'T EVEN- BUT HE'S SO-"

"When you were off talking a mile a minute to Carly Rae about her collab with Owl City backstage, he must've recognized you and knew you wouldn't've came alone, because next thing I knew he'd teleported just like he used to and nearly gave me a heart attack."

"Aw...geez, you have no idea how many times he and Butcher liked to do that, always when I'm doing chores. Laundry was the worst, the way I'd go to switch clothes over from the washer to the dryer and I look up and they're perched atop it like-" she sighed, suddenly wishing things hadn't changed so much.

"Now what's that for?"

She rolled her eyes, looking over the apartment that had been their home for the past six years.

"I just wished things hadn't changed. Part of me still wants to be at the mansion, freaking out over every sound at night because it was so old and I was convinced it was haunted. And then there's all the hiding spots, man, hide and go seek was fun - and there's all the times the pipes busted...I wonder if they ever tore it down?"

"Well, if we'd ever get a move on to Robinson Woods, we could go check - after we set up, there should still be time for you to take a trip down memory lane if you wish," William explained, grabbing for the backpack, knowing she probably wanted to get going more than he did.

She only nodded and started whistling the chorus to THNKS FR TH MMRS.

"I'll be damned. They didn't even change anything. I'd have thought the city would've leveled it by now," AJ thought aloud, just wishing she could take the steps two at a time up to the big wooden doors, candlelight flickering through the curtained windows.

It had been a short walk to the old building from where she and William would be camping, she'd left him to set up everything, being she probably would screw it up and nothing would be ready before dark.

To think this had been the same exact woods the scary stories of her high school years had come to life in and the same woods where the very thought of Blair Witch couldn't scare her anymore made her smile. So much had changed in such a short while, but it seemed the woods were all the same. The trees hadn't changed a bit, and the smell of forest pine still filled the air.

But then, as she stood regarding her old home with a look that could have only been one of longing, she became aware that every noise around her had stopped. Not a single bird chirped, not even the wind blew. She sighed, feeling for a moment that even the world itself had frozen to mimic the state of her being, although that would never be true.

Shaking off the impossible thoughts she was having (asides from breaking into the mansion just to see if anything had changed), she went to turn around and walk back to where William was.

Not surprised in the slightest, she couldn't help smiling at the figure that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere before her.

"I told you you'd hear new music from us all someday. Just like that letter promised."

He's still the same old bass player he was before the split - perhaps the immortality's maintained most of those features, but the boyish charm and fun-loving energy radiating from the vampire still send the blonde running into him and embracing him in the tightest hug she can manage.

"ADAM! God you have known idea how much I've missed you guys...all of you. I wish just once that we could all get together, I mean with the recent news and all I'm hoping we can plan it, but still I just...oh my god, you haven't changed a bit. And then there's-"

"Easy, Adeline. Slow down. I know it's been a few years, but come on, that's like the blink of an eye to us. William more or less sent me to find you - figured you'd be around the old house."

"He got that right. I miss it...I mean, the apartment is nice, but it doesn't have that feel the old place did, you know?"

"Say that after you've slept on friends' couches for a year and you'll really miss the place." he laughed, started to walk back towards where 'camp' had been set up.

Once Sisky and AJ had gotten back to the campsite, everything had been set up. A fire had even been started, although everyone had to be careful incase it carried and the whole place would be lit up, and nobody wanted that.

The day passed by faster than realized and it was probably eight or nine before the conversation in front of the fire turned to recent events - AJ squealing about the wedding with the line in particular, ""I swear, if Brendon kicks the door down wearing that fucking top hat and the ringmaster coat with a bunch of circus freaks at his disposal I'm going to murder his immortal ass. Then I'll resurrect him and kill him again." sending her into a fit of giggles before resuming to practically talk the others' ears off before a sudden crashing sound from the distance startled her into shutting up.

"What the hell was that? Sounded like a body...hope those creepypastas haven't came back..."

William wrapped his arms a little tighter around her, remembering how she'd freaked out the night the Smiling Man had pretty much caught them mid-make-out on the forest-but-these-are-really-woods floor.

"It's probably just a local dog that got loose that's running around. If it makes you feel any safer, go on and crawl in the tent, the sleeping bags are set up, and there's a lantern you can turn on."

"Not kerosene, I hope?" she joked lightly, trying not to let her mind run.

William smiled, but shook his head.

"You really do miss the old place, don't you, doll?"

"On second thought...I think, if it's okay...part of me wants to go check that noise out...makes me feel like it's spring break all over again...like, i just... I feel human again when I get scared."

Sisky gave her an odd look, as though she were crazy.

"Wait. You like feeling human?"

"You don't?"

"I've forgotten what it's like, honestly. But no, I'm not going to come with you. There actually are things I just need to tell William about, and with you looking into that noise it gives me a chance to do so."

"Oh, alright. Well, I'll yell if I find anything."

And then, with the impatience of the typical human, she took off away from the fire into the night, intent on figuring out what exactly had caused that noise.

Expecting it to be a dog like William had suggested it was, imagine how surprised she was to see a girl about twelve, although she didn't exactly look like a girl. AJ had never been happier to have grabbed a flashlight.

Her skin was covered in large bruises, and the middle of these large bruises the skin was black, some spots oozing blood from what looked like bite marks. She didn't move, either, she more just started to stagger towards AJ in a step that was out of sync, and at a second look it was noticeable her foot lay at the opposite angle than normal, although she was still moving.

I swear to god if this turns into what I think it's turning into I need a gun.

"H-Hello? You know you're hurt, right?" she asked the girl, who only looked at her, eyes bloodshot and mouth wide open, black blood dribbling down her chin on the dirty clothes she wore.

The only response she received was a groan.

Fuck. I'm right.

And no sooner had the thought crossed her mind then did the girl begin moving again, transfixed on her voice.

AJ didn't want to move, somehow she didn't think it was real. That all the scary ghost stuff was far over, years ago. Every second it was getting closer, and though she didn't feel like finding out if zombies really existed maybe just this once she wouldn't do anything to stop it.

Well, that was until the, "WATCH OUT!" from some ten feet behind her sent her running as someone charged the girl, dismantling the bruised and blackened body with inhuman speed, quite literally snapping the neck and pulling its head off before proceeding to grab the nearest fallen branch and stabbing said head.

"Uh. What the fuck just happened and who the hell-"

She paused, noticing who had saved her - and how many times had she as a human imagined something like this? But not with zombies involved, just him. Before she fell in love with William, he'd always been her first crush in TAI.

"Nice to see you too, Adeline."

She gawked, and Mike Carden wiped his mouth on his sleeve, smirking.


	10. Chapter 10

"How'd you-I don't even-WHERE. THE. FUCK. HAVE. YOU. BEEN. FOR. THE. PAST. FIVE. YEARS?!"

Every word was punctured with a playfully slap on the shoulder, which on the last one she went to hug him but he instead stepped into her so her arms were around his neck, his own on her sides, and not two seconds later he'd kissed her full on the mouth.

He grinned ten seconds later as he pulled away, she looking completely shocked.

"I've always wanted to do that. Miss me?"

She giggled, and then the realization of what he'd just done hit her, although she was more playfully scolding him than being truly mad.

"You son of a bitch. You just disappear for five years and then show up out of NOWHERE and KISS ME like that? Oh if William knew he'd have your head, granted you did kill whatever that was..."

"Zombie."

"Zo- yeah whatever. Let's go with that. So what the hell have you been up to? I mean, we're camping, Sisky's with us and all, oh and William and I are getting married, but-"

"Took him long enough. Congrats...you'll make a beautiful bride when the day comes, assuming you're still planning it all out. Can't say I've done much, honestly. Gigs here and there but they were never anything big. And as far as the zombie thing goes, that's not the first one I've ran into."

She nodded, motioning off to the area where the tents were.

"This isn't like an epidemic, is it? That would suck…and I've still got friends that could be in trouble…"

AJ pretended not to notice the way his eyes had lit up at the reference to Amelia, and continued on, "But for now seems like everything's under control. Um, I guess if you want you can hang with us, I mean, there's enough space and you probably don't have anything to do…"

He laughed, "Nothing other than to head to the bars and find a girl, but seeing that zombie's got me a little wary of going out tonight. I'd better hang with you guys."

It was quiet for a few minutes as they walked before AJ spoke again.

"And I don't know how William'll react. It's been years, and since you don't have a twitter or facebook or

anything it's been really hard trying to keep up. I'm hoping there's no bad blood, the split was kinda….on bad terms."

"It wasn't bad terms, Adeline you know the label had had it with us after the EP. And then with Butcher and Chislett leaving, that didn't help things."

"I'm just lucky I have the only living copy of the mixtape for Chicago. To think William almost wanted to light it on fire on our anniversary following the break-up, you know, it's a day before, on the 7th. Given I convinced him to save it and it's now buried somewhere with the Warped tour shirts and all the other tour mementos, but I still have it."

"William…I…that noise…don't take this the wrong way, but I think that supernatural stuff is back. And that's not the only thing." AJ started as soon as the fire was in sight.

"Doll, come on. You said it yourself those things were over years ago. And what do you mean that's not the only thing?" he asked, turning to look at her, at which was the moment AJ shoved Carden in front of her with a nervous squeak.

Immediately William's eyes widened at the sight of his old band's ex-rhythm guitarist. Not letting his face betray any emotion he might have felt, he nodded, got up, and walked over before extending a hand, and a (surprising coolly) "Santi."

Before Carden had a chance to return the old greeting he'd finally grown out of using, Adeline squealed and the two vampires turned to see her biting her lip and fanning herself, as though she was going to faint.

Sisky laughed.

"What's your problem? It's only a word."

She giggled, "ONLY A WORD?! Do you know HOW long I've waited to hear one of you say that to each other? Since the old days…I didn't get this for nothing. Speaking of which you still have it tattooed on your ass, I hope." She teased, and William internally face-palmed as she pulled off her shirt in one fluid movement, although she wore a spaghetti strap camisole beneath it.

But decorating her shoulder blade was the same word the band had said many a time, although modified and then bordered by lavender Celtic knot work.

'Take a deep breath, Santi.'

Both Sisky and Carden smiled when they realized the handwriting of the tattoo was William's.

"Really? You let her – and worse yet you even wrote it for her." Carden asked, to which William shrugged.

"Took me two years after the break up to give in to doing that. Wasn't cheap, but it's no more than some of her dresses were, come to think of it."

"So. Can we all sit down? This feels kinda awkward, and I'm cold…" Adeline complained, though she wasn't pulling her shirt back on.

"Go on, you know what I've brought – how it's not torn to shreds yet I'll never know." William told her, at the same time motioning for Carden to sit by the fire.

She dove into the nearby tent to retrieve something, and with a smile both of the younger vampires sighed at the sight of the blonde with William's old woolen cloak draped around her small frame.

"It's nice to see that's held up over the years. Looks like your love has as well, given the ring you're wearing." Sisky noted at the diamond on the left hand, which only caused Adeline to laugh.

"You wouldn't believe how long it took him to buy a formal ring - remember that one from right after Halloween and all that crazy stuff? yeah, I had to wear that for the next five and half year years, then it switched to a necklace and finally earrings before it was a new ring."

"Speaking of which, seeing as you've already got the ring I suppose there's no better time for this." William cut in after adjusting the fire, and automatically her eyes widened, knowing exactly what he meant.

Carden and Sisky exchanged glances. Adeline had told them she and William were getting married and William hadn't yet formally proposed?

Had she been human, the girl would have blushed scarlet as William walked over and took her hand, gently lifting it to his lips to kiss it before bending to one knee before her.

Adeline put her other hand to her mouth in shock as he began to speak in easily the most sure and confident tone she'd ever heard from any man.

"I've spent long enough thinking everything over - I hadn't mentioned any of this sooner for fear of saying the wrong thing. I should have done this years ago, I realize that in hindsight. Earliest memories place the true longing feeling of wanting you to forever be mine during your graduation, with the things I would have done to see that deep violette dress turn a beautiful blanc in the blink of an eye," and here she smiled at the slight French he'd used in speaking of the colors, but he continued, "But I knew you'd never approve of such a rash move that soon in our relationship. I took my time, you know as well as I that a year is but the snap of a finger to our kind, a decade but the opening to a song. I wanted to make sure this was right - and judging by your reaction right now and that fact I've managed to take you by surprise proves there's still some things I can do that'll take your breath away."

She hated to interrupt him, but that fact had never been truer than it was now - whether it was the lazy mornings waking up to an already-made breakfast complete with a wineglass of blood to the hiking trips and watching the sun sink into the horizon from the dangerous heights of an old tree, there was always something he could do to make her fall even more in love with him.

"Toujours, mon chere. Tu enlevez mon souffle sans essayer!"

He smiled, it wasn't often she spoke that way anymore, and he loved every word.

"And even though we don't need to breathe anymore, there's just one thing you can do that would forever take my own breath away if I still had it - as you know, if I were still human my heart gladly would beat for yours, and that I'd cherish every beat, enhanced only by our fingers interlocking and those shy little smiles you have - much like the one gracing your face now. And I suppose you want to know what that one thing is."

He paused, well aware she probably would have fainted by now if she'd been human. She nodded, sounding like a little kid with the, "Oh, s'il vous plaît s'il vous plaît s'il vous plaît dites-moi!" that left her lips.

He looked directly up at her, his molten milk chocolate hazel eyes burning with adoration and determination, and for a moment AJ wondered how'd she ever managed to not get lost in them, although she knew this very gaze had landed her in trouble multiple times.

"Adeline Jeanette Winters, ma chérie, me marier."

And he'd never heard her squeal louder as she motioned for him to rise, all the while repeating "Oui, oui, mon dieu, oui!" and multiple variations thereof before he leaned in and kissed her, this time sealing the mental promise he'd made the night he decided to turn her.

As soon as she had calmed down and changed into something a little more comfy than the jeans and sweatshirt she'd been wearing, the four sat around the fire intending for a heart to heart to catch up

"It's weird, seeing you in human clothes, Adeline. How long did it take you to let her wear this stuff?" Carden asked William, who rolled his eyes as the girl in his arms answered for him.

"Well after the first ten pairs of sweatpants went missing only to be replaced with knee length skirts and leggings I thought suddenly I'd turned into Jane Eyre and here was Mr. Rochester attempting to dress his common bride like a noble lady," she smiled, turning to rest her head on his shoulder before her cut her off.

"But you're not common, you never were. And it's painful to see you in clothes like these - I know times have changed, but you're meant to be in better things."

She huffed, lifted her head and reached up a hand to flick his nose as if he was a dog, to which he only grabbed her hand and kissed her palm.

"Can you ever just let me feel human again? I thought the apartment meant your etiquette and situational dispositions had upgraded back to 'normal modern day vampire al la Twilight' but based on that proposal and what you just said about all the Aerie sleepwear i've acquired lately has me thinking otherwise."

He smiled, "Can and will are decidedly different things my dear. And even so - with everything that's been happening lately I don't think we'll be seeing much more of that apartment."

"Why wouldn't we be seeing it? This is like a weekend trip, baby, aren't we going back home after this?"

William smiled.

"Not exactly, doll. I know how much you've wanted to see some of the old guys, so I kinda went and got us tickets to another show, and it's someone you've missed a lot. And it's up in Milwaukee, so you know who we may run into."

"ANDY?! But wait, who's show is it? RYAN?!" She chirped, excited at the thought of down 'up north' if only for a day or two.

"Ryan's close, but it's Jon. He's playing the Riverside in three days, so consider it a surprise engagement gift."

"REALLY?! THANK YOU!" And with that, Adeline turned herself in his arms, kissing him soundly.

By the time William could pull away, he couldn't get the grin off his face.

"It's really nothing, love. Now Adam, what's all this you've been saying about an epidemic?"

The bassist shrugged, "Not much to be said but the dead are coming back to life- and not because anyone's doing the siring."

Adeline's eyes widened, knowing exactly what he meant.

"And poor Adeline here would have been one of them if it weren't for me showing up," Carden interjected, grabbing for another bloodbag.

"Hey, I can take care of myself, thanks much."

"That's not how it looked before I bashed it's head in," he teased, reaching to ruffle her hair, receiving a growl in response.

"But anyways – how bad of a problem could it be?" The blonde shot back, giggling.

All three older vampires scoffed, Sisky crossing his arms and shaking his head.

William sighed.

"Adeline, sweetie – Amelia had a point when she was second guessing the wedding, and although I truly do wish to marry you, that wedding was going to be a way to get everyone back together again."

"But I figured that…that's nothing new."

"But the fact that Adam even agreed to come camping with us and Mike just appears out of nowhere with having no clue of what we've been doing these last few years – it appears everyone's finding each other of their own accord, having sensed what I've feared for awhile."

"You mean all that tensing during The Walking Dead isn't just because it's a nerve-wrecking show?"

He nodded, "Why do you think I hold you a little tighter every time a girl on the show gets bit or in trouble? I fear one day that'll be you and there'll come a time when I won't be able to save you."

She giggled, "Getting scared, aren't you? A bit."

She noticed the look he gave her, deep brown eyes reflecting the firelight, she'd just sounded like one of the characters and there wasn't much he could do to stop her.

"But either way, we're immortal. And we're already like it – the look you just gave me proves I'm acting like Lori already, and we are sitting around a dying fire. And there is a song that was in an episode that you and I both know very well, even if you did once forget the words in the dreams you used to torment me with."

He raised an eyebrow in suspicion, but smiled anyways.

"You wouldn't."

She in turn smirked and stuck her tongue out, before taking a deep breath and beginning to sing.

"Of all the money that e'er I had I've spent it in good company

And all the harm that e'er I've done Alas it was to none but me

And all I've done for want of wit To memory now I can't recall

So fill to me the parting glass Good night and joy be with you all…"

Instantly William was taken back to the night he'd met her, the dreams he'd sent her afterward. If he thought hard enough, he could still remember the smell of freshly ground coffee beans and the soft flicker of the kerosene lanterns hanging in the window. And so he too joined in, allowing her to harmonize.

"Of all the comrades that e'er I had They are sorry for my going away

And all the sweethearts that e'er I had They would wish me one more day to stay

But since it falls unto my lot That I should rise and you should not

I'll gently rise and I'll softly call Good night and joy be with you all

If I had money for to spend I'd spend it in her company

And of all the harm that I have done I hope it's pardoned I will be

And all I've done for want of it To memory now I can't recall

So fill to me the parting glass Good night and joy be with you all.."

Here he stopped, allowing her to take the last verse, remembering how she'd sang it in the dream, though now her voice was far better sounding years down the road.

"A man may drink and not be drunk A man may fight and not be slain

A man may court a pretty girl And perhaps be welcomed back again

But since it has so ought to be By a time to rise and a time to fall

Come fill to me the parting glass Good night and joy be with you all

Good night and joy be with you all…"

At the end of it, she yawned, and curled up where she was, her head on William's shoulder and her legs thrown over the other side of his lap.

Sisky and Carden both exchanged a look.

"I think that's our cue we should all probably go to bed. Mike, if you want, I've got room in my tent if you don't wanna be out here," Sisky said, to which the black haired vampire nodded.

"That's fine. I've gotten used to being out here alone; it'll be nice to have someone to talk to."

With that, the two younger ones headed off to one tent while William put out the dying fire and carried Adeline into their own.


	11. Chapter 11

"Doll, put your phone away and lie down, you're tired. Don't think I won't take the battery out of your phone." William chastised as Adeline sat ontop of her sleeping bag, scrolling through the twitter app on her Droid Razr.

"Not going to. Big news. Amelia's actually talking to me."And it was true, because onscreen had been a direct message from the older girl.

' themagicgirl rarityinempathy - so guess who showed up and what I'm in the middle of? Again. x_x' and attached was a photo of pretty much the entire gang from the old days, sans Bob Bryar.

' rarityinempathy: themagicgirl. Shut up. DID YOU TELL THEM MY NEWS?! That's practically everyone we need to invite yet!'

' themagicgirl: rarityinempathy: no, I didn't. real talk, zombies. Nobody wants to get you and Beckett involved, but if it's like everything else we're gonna have to like it or not.'

' rarityinempathy: themagicgirl. Fuck. WE'VE ALREADY HAD THAT PROBLEM! Ugh, call me? It's easier to talk.'

themagicgirl: rarityinempathy kk.'

Just then AJ got another tweet.

rarityinempathy: themagicgirl can you call me instead? my phone is gonna die.

With a slight sigh, AJ punched in her friend's number and waited for it to connect.

Amelia had just plugged in her phone when it suddenly started yelling, "IT'S A NONSTOP DISCO. BET YOU IT'S NABISCO! BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW! WOO HOO!"

Everyone laughed.

"Wow Amelia, I wouldn't have pegged you for a being a fan of System of a Down," Gerard remarked, amused.

"Yeah, everybody seems surprised when I tell them how much I love metal music," she said as she picked up the phone and put it on speaker.

"So hold up, shit just got real. YOU HAVE SIMPLE PLAN AND MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IN THE SAME ROOM AND YOU DON'T BOTHER TO TELL THEM I'M GETTING MARRIED AND THEY'RE ALL INVITED?!" AJ yelled, trying not to laugh.

"It's not like they'd want to hear that, AJ, most of them still hate-"

"Don't you dare say they hate William still. Without him and most of the Dandies, they wouldn't be alive thanks to all the shit we already went through."

"And we already know you're marrying the bastard, thanks for the tweet." Frank added.

"They're getting married?" Seb asked, looking towards Amelia, who nodded, "I'll explain later."

"So yeah, other than that, you'll never guess what just happened to me! So we're camping out in Robinson Woods, right? I go out because I'm hearing noises in the woods and I shit you not, it was like something straight out of The Walking Dead." AJ jumped right into it, not surprised to hear a few sighs.

"Like Walking Dead how?" Amelia asked, already having some idea of exactly what her friend has seen.

"Girl that looked really beat up and was oozing black blood and all that, didn't notice I was there til I called out to her and all of a sudden she's practically rushing my ass trying to kill me. Good thing Carden showed up and killed it, otherwise I might not be talking to you right now."

"HE WHAT?" And this time it's Amelia that's startled.

"You heard me. Seems like the old gang's trying to get back together, did I mention Sisky was camping with us?"

"Uh no." No one really feels like talking, nothing the sort of hell that's bound to break loose with who they're talking to.

"Did now. But yeah, dealing with all this zombie stuff - Chicago's absolutely insane right now, and I'm so glad I've got a way out of it. William bought me tickets to a show up in Milwaukee. And you'll never guess who's. Anybody?" she asked, the entire room visibly shrugged in sync as if she could see.

"No clue, AJ." Chuck speaks up.

"Jon Walker. Would've never thought he'd ever go solo, but he's doing just as well as William is I guess, and he's playing the Riverside in about three days, a little last minute but a welcome experience all the same. Who knows when I'll see the apartment again."

"Who cares about your stupid little apartment, there's a could-be-worldewide-crisis and you're freaking out about not seeing your bed again. Probably will get mad if you rip some expensive clothes while we're on the run too, you're a typical dandie." Mikey added, rolling his eyes at the growl on the other line.

"I'm allowed to wear normal clothes thank you very much. Here, you want to talk to William? I'm sure he's had more experience with zombies than-" she started before someone cut her off.

"AJ they don't wanna hear-" Amelia cut in, before she too was cut off on the other line.

"Greetings, all. I had a feeling something like this would be happening again...even my old group is coming back together after years apart. Given everything that's happening, it's probably best we do all run into each other again soon. As Adeline said, we are getting married soon, you are, of course, all invited to attend."

"Pending you both aren't stupid enough to get yourselves killed," Seb chimed in.

"Oh shut up." AJ shot back, before William cut her off again, "But she is right, I've had experience with zombies before."

"As have we." Gerard's calm, knowing sooner or later everyone's going to have to work together.

"If we're to meet up, where do you think would be best? I realize Adeline said something about a show."

"Yes, Jon Walker, he's playing in a few days at the Riverside in Milwaukee. If you can make it there without complications from our undead friends, it seems that would be our best chance at a face to face meeting." William continued.

Everyone in the room nodded.

"Well, that sounds alright. I'll call AJ when we get up to Milwaukee, if that's alright. I have some things to do here, so I'm gonna let you go," Amelia said, really wanting to get off the phone now that she had just set up everyone for yet another conference-like setting with a group of vampires they hated.

"As do I. Goodnight, Amelia...and best wishes to the rest of you in dealing with the new threat. Congrats in that it once again isn't my men against yours, although I'm sure there's a confrontation to be had down the road." And with that, the elder Dandie hung up on AJ's side of the line.

After getting off the phone with AJ, everyone was ready to go out on patrol. As they got ready to leave, Amelia's phone rang again. She looked at the number and recognized it as Rosie, one of her nurses' aides.

"Bueno," she said as she answered the phone.

"Señorita Amelia, ayúdame!" came the scared reply from the other end

"Rosie,¿todo está bien?" she asked as everyone looked at her strangely. None of them spoke Spanish and therefore had no idea what she was saying.

"No! Necesito ayuda!"

"Rosie, necesito que me digas lo que pasa. ¿Dónde estás?"

"Estoy en casa. Yo estaba descansando cuando oí un ruido."

"Mhmm. ¿Cuál tipo de ruido oíste? Describémelo."

"Pues, fue un toco a la puerta. Abrí la puerta y fue un zombi! Srta Amelia, tengo mucho miedo porque el zombi todavia está tratando de entrar a mi casa! Ayúdame!" the girl yelled, on the verge of tears.

"Rosie, ¿dónde estás en la casa?"

"Me escondo en el baño."

"¿Has llamado a la policía?"

"Ya la he llamado, pero todavia no ha venido."

"Okay. Rosie, me da tu dirección. Seb, get me a piece of paper," Amelia said as she fished in her pocket for a pen.

Rosie rattled off her address, which Amelia wrote down, having been well versed in writing things quickly when taking telephone orders from doctors.

"Okay Rosie, me voy. No deja al baño, ¿me entiendes?"

"Entiendo. Gracias."

Amelia hung up the phone.

"Well guys, it looks like we might actually get to fight some zombies, because one of them is trying to get into one of my coworkers houses. Let's go check it out!" she declared, looking at everyone else.

"All right, lead the way," Gerard said.

They walked out of the hotel. Amelia had been living in the city for quite a while, so she knew all of the little shortcuts. Within minutes, they came upon the residential district where Rosie lived. As soon as they entered the area, those with supernatural senses were able to direct them to the correct house.

When Amelia had talked to Rosie on the phone, she made it sound like there was only one zombie, however they saw that there were actually at least four zombies.

"Okay, here's what I want us to do. Chuck, I want you to come with Gerard, Ray, and I. We're going into the house to rescue my aide. Everyone else, take care of the zombies and we'll meet you back out here. Sound okay?" Amelia asked

She was met with approval all around. Amelia lead the way toward the house. Thankfully, all of the zombies had congregated in the front of the house. They approached the back door cautiously nonetheless. When they discovered that the door was locked, Ray used a burst of strength to kick the door down. They walked into the kitchen. Amelia didn't want to take any chances by splitting up, so they all stuck together.

"Rosie, es Amelia. Estoy aquí. ¿Dónde estás?" Amelia said as they walked through the kitchen.

"Estoy en el baño," came the reply.

"Gerard, can you hear anything? I want to make sure there's not going to be an undead surprise waiting for us on the other side," Amelia said, turning to Gerard.

Gerard listened for a moment.

"No, there's nothing. You should be fine," he replied.

"Rosie, abre la puerta. Mis amigos están aquí también. Vamos a ayudarte."

Some shuffling was heard on the other side and the door opened to reveal a very shaken Rosie, who was brandishing a kitchen knife for protection. Upon seeing Amelia, she dropped the knife and launched herself at her. Amelia hugged the girl and rubbed her back.

"Rosie, ¿estás herida?" Amelia asked

The girl shook her head.

"¿Qué debo hacer ahora?"

"Pues, ¿de dónde es su familia?"

"Mi familia es de Guatemala pero muchos de mis parientes viven en Minnesota."

"¿Puedes vivir con ellos? Ahora es muy peligroso en Chicago."

"Creo que si, ¿pero como voy a salir a Chicago si los zombies están afuera?"

"Gerard, could you do me an impossibly huge favor? Rosie said that she has family that she could stay with in Minnesota. I don't know how the rest of the country is faring, but anywhere else is better than her staying here alone. Could you possibly take her to her relatives in Minnesota?" Amelia asked

She knew that she was asking a lot of Gerard, to help someone he barely knew, but Amelia couldn't just leave Rosie here.

"Sure, no problem," he shrugged.

"Thank you so much!" she replied

"Okay Rosie, este es mi amigo Gerard. Él va a ayudarte a ir a Minnesota."

Rosie looked skeptically at Amelia.

"¿Cómo va a hacerlo?"

Amelia laughed.

"Nunca me creerías."

Amelia then instructed Rosie to pack a bag and she scurried away to gather some things. After a few minutes, she returned, bag in hand. Amelia had her describe the location and then interpreted it into English for Gerard, who took Rosie's arm and was gone in the blink of an eye. Once he had returned, they rejoined everyone else outside.

Meanwhile outside, it was kind of a mess. After Amelia and the others had went inside, that left the remaining ones to fight it out. There were four zombies in total.

"Four zombies. Not too bad. We can take them!" David declared

"Whatever you do, just don't let them get close enough to bite!" Mikey warned

At the sound of their voices, the zombies turned and ran at everyone.

"Pierre, do me a favor. Make me a spike made out of concrete," Jeff said.

Pierre nodded and created a concrete spike. He handed it to Jeff, who had unclipped the shackle around his wrist that was used to contain the immense power he possessed as an oni.

"David, make sure this hits its target," he said. David nodded and began to manipulate the air currents.

With the strength of 10,000 men, Jeff launched the spear like a javelin, hitting one zombie in the forehead and exiting out the back of its head. The creature dropped to the ground and remained motionless.

"Nicely done, but I think I have a faster way of doing that," Mikey said, giving Sebastien a look.

Seb smirked. At the same time, the two of them ran at two different zombies and promptly separated the heads from each of their zombies. The last of the zombies was taken out by Frank and Mikey.

Shortly thereafter, Amelia and the others walked out of the house.

"Is your friend okay?" Seb asked

"Yeah, she's fine. She's with family now."

"What do we do now?" Frank asked

"Let's go back to the hotel and regroup there," Gerard suggested and everyone nodded. They walked back the way they had come. After walking for a few moments, Pierre suddenly stopped everyone.

"Guys, wait. I sense something strange. Stop moving," he said.

Pierre had taken his shoes off and was now concentrating.

"I can feel an extra set of footsteps. There's someone or something here with us," he announced.

Almost as if on cue, David spun around and thrust his hands out, creating a large gale of wind. Everyone heard a resounding thump as something hit the wall of the building they were standing near. Before whatever was there could escape, Pierre turned the concrete of the building into a quicksand-like material, trapping whatever was there.

Everyone walked over and was surprised by what they saw.

"Holy shit, are you serious?" Mikey asked

Standing in front of them was Michael Guy Chislett.

Everyone was pretty much shocked into silence.

Seb was the first one to snap out of it.

"What the hell are you doing, following us? Who sent you?" he asked, fangs bared

"Relax mate, I came of my own accord."

"I don't believe you," he said.

"Of course you don't. I'm one of William's men. Why would you?" Chislett asked, a slight smirk on his face

"Well, given your current track record, I'd say they have every reason not to trust you," Amelia piped up.

"Well, if it isn't the little Waterbender. How're you doing, sheila?" he asked with a wink

Before Amelia could respond, Mikey stepped in front of her.

"Cut the shit, Chislett. Why are you here?"

"Oh and if it isn't My Chemical Romance. Say, aren't you guys one member short? Oh wait, that's right. You got too big for your britches and chased off the wizard. You know, he really was the best thing to ever happen to you guys and you guys fucked it up!"

It took the combined efforts of Gerard, Sebastien, and Ray to hold Mikey back. With a ferocious snarl, he tried to free himself so that he could tear apart the smirking bastard in front of him, but everyone held on tight.

"Did you actually have a reason for coming here or did you just want to be a sarcastic bastard?" Frank asked as a flame danced dangerously in between his hands.

"To tell you the truth, I got this really bad feeling a few months ago and it wouldn't leave me alone. I figured that something bad was going to happen, so I came back to the U.S. to find William, but instead, I found you guys. I had been staying in that neighborhood last night and when I saw the zombies, I was more determined than ever to find William. It just so happens that you guys showed up first. I was only following you because I was hoping that I could get a free meal out of the Waterbender and be on my way to finding William," he said, looking at Amelia.

"Well, you won't find William in this city. As it happens, he's on his way to Milwaukee with Adeline, something about going to see a show. Now that you're here, I guess we have no choice but to go find him and the others," Amelia said.

She was immediately met with protests. She silenced everyone by holding her hand up.

"Listen guys, I know it's not what we really wanted to do, but it's only 90 miles to Milwaukee. We can handle it. Now, let's go back to the hotel and regroup."

Begrudgingly, Pierre freed Chislett and they continued their walk back to the hotel.

"Can't we just leave him here? Why does he have to come with? Come on, Amelia, can't we at least knock him out or something?" Seb asked, pouting slightly

"No. Now stop acting like a child!" she admonished, though she couldn't help but smile

Shortly thereafter, they made it back to the hotel.


	12. Chapter 12

Once everyone had settled in, they started to talk about what they had seen.

"So, what exactly are we up against?" Amelia asked, looking to Mikey.

"Well, these zombies are fast. Not quite as fast as the Walkers in the Walking Dead, but we still have to be careful. They also seem to be sensitive to sound, so I'd say that when we go against them, we'll have to try to be as quiet as possible. Other than that, it wasn't terribly difficult to take them out," Mikey replied,

"So you're saying that we have a chance?" Chuck asked

"I'd say that we have a pretty good chance. We just have to be smart."

After that, they decided to order room service before turning in for the night. The concert wasn't for a few days, so they had time to plan. Gerard took Frank, David, and Chislett out so that they could hunt. After everyone came back, they decided to try to settle down. Amelia's mind was racing though, and she tossed and turned but was unable to fall asleep. Eventually, she got up and put on her shoes.

"Where are you going?" whispered Seb, sitting up

"Don't worry about it," Amelia said as she stepped over David, who had fallen asleep on the floor.

Amelia just wanted to take a walk to try and tire herself out. She padded quietly down the hallway. As she walked, she had the feeling of eyes on her back, like someone was watching her. With a huff, she turned around.

"Okay Chislett, I know you're following me. You can come out now," she said quietly.

She heard a laugh and turned around. Chislett was leaning against a wall, smirking.

"What's wrong, sheila? Scared of the zombies and couldn't sleep?"

"Please, I've seen scarier things in the emergency room. Zombies aren't so bad," Amelia declared, though she was lying.

"I know you're lying," he said, moving closer.

"Oh really? How?" she challenged

"Well, your heart rate just increased, so that's a pretty good sign," he smirked, getting closer still.

He was an arm's length away when something whizzed past Amelia and ran straight for Chislett.

Mikey had come out of nowhere and had Chislett pinned to the wall, his hand wrapped around his throat. He held up a clawed hand.

"I am going to give you one warning, and one warning only. Stay away from Amelia, or I will kill you," he said, his voice low and dangerous.

He dropped Chislett to the ground and walked away. Amelia trailed behind him. When she looked back, Chislett was gone again.

Before Mikey went back to the room, he turned to Amelia.

"If he or anyone else give you trouble, just let me know."

"Okay Mikey," she said.

With that, she returned to the room and fell into a dreamless sleep.

When everyone woke up the next morning, they discovered that Chislett was gone!

"Wow Mikey, I guess you scared him off!" Amelia joked

Mikey cracked a smile. "I doubt it. I'm sure he went to go look for Beckett."

"Well, that's fine with me. I didn't really like having him here anyway. Made me nervous," Seb said, glancing at Amelia.

"So now that he's gone, what should we do? The concert isn't for another two days," Chuck reminded everyone.

"I think it would be wise to gather the necessary supplies before we go to Milwaukee, food rations, maybe some weapons, stuff like that," Gerard said

Everyone agreed, so after enjoying the continental breakfast, they set out to do some light shopping.

Everyone had gone shopping. Everyone that is, except for Amelia. She just didn't feel like going with, so she had decided to stay back at the hotel. At Sebastien's insistence, David stayed with her. Everyone promised that they wouldn't be gone for more than a few hours. At first, David and Amelia had just sat and talked and joked around. For the first time in weeks, Amelia felt her spirits lifting. She actually quite enjoyed David's company. After talking for almost an hour, David excused himself from the room.

"I'm gonna go check out the vending machines. Want anything?" he asked, fishing some change out of his wallet

"I'm good, thanks," she replied.

David walked out and down the hall to where the vending machines were. He sighed to himself. He didn't know how much longer he would be able to contain himself. It had been almost a week since he had fresh blood. Since he was younger than Frank and Gerard, it was difficult for him to control himself, especially when he was sitting with Amelia. He only hoped he could keep himself under control until everyone else got back.

He picked up the candy bar and walked back to the room. Amelia was lying on the bed, resting. He ate the candy bar in silence and tried to sit as far away from Amelia as possible. The only sound that David could hear was the sound of Amelia's heart beating steady. He shook his head to try and rid himself of the temptation, but he felt his teeth lengthen into fangs and he cursed internally. He immediately assumed a cross legged position on the floor and tried to focus on his breathing. Normally, meditation was a good way to calm himself down, but this time, it had no effect.

Before he was really conscious of what he was doing, he had crossed the room and was standing over

Amelia. He moved a strand of hair from her neck and knelt down. Amelia's eyes fluttered open and she screamed.

"Jesus, David, what the hell are you doing?!" she asked sitting up

David couldn't answer. The hunger was overpowering him.

"David, are you feeling okay?" Amelia asked

She stood up and grabbed his wrist, feeling for a pulse. His heart was racing and there was a crazed look in his eye.

"David, why don't you sit down? I'm going to call Seb and see how long it will be before they're back,"

Amelia said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her cell phone. At once, David's hand shot out and

grabbed her wrist in a vice-like grip.

"Don't call them. I'm fine," he said.

"David, let go. You're hurting me!" Amelia said, wriggling to try and free herself from his grasp.

He had managed to capture her right wrist, which was her dominant hand. Using her left hand, she made a swooping motion, summoning the water from the skin at her hip. As she raised her left hand, David grabbed the other wrist and the water splashed to floor, useless. Amelia struggled.

"David, let me go! You're hurting me!" she demanded

Instead, David swung her around and backed her up until she hit the wall. Her arms were pinned above her head. Amelia began to panic as her brain conjured up images from the forest all those years ago, when she had been in the exact same position with Mike Carden.

"David please, don't do this. Let me go!"

He didn't say anything. Instead, he turned her neck to the side, exposing the tender flesh. He rested his fangs on the skin for a moment, breathing in the scent of fear before he sunk his fangs into her neck. Amelia gasped as tears rolled down her cheeks.

David, meanwhile, gave in to the hunger and allowed himself the pleasure of relishing the taste of the blood, sweet and innocent. It was almost as if he was drinking water for the first time after being stranded in the desert. With every sip, he could feel himself wanting more. He was so enthralled by this sensation that he failed to notice Amelia's heart rate. Her heart was beating rapidly though it was growing weaker by the second. She had fallen unconscious and her skin had taken on an unnatural pallor. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to David, he lifted his head from her neck and was shocked by what he found.

The moment that he removed his fangs, it was as if a fog inside of his head had cleared and he was seeing things for the first time. He was supporting Amelia's unconscious body. Her skin was pale and cool to the touch. He let her body fall to the ground. What had he done? He raised a hand to his mouth and was sickened to find blood on his fingers. He looked at his fingers in horror.

At that exact moment, the door to the room opened, and in walked his friends. Pierre and Jeff were the first ones in the room.

"Hey David, you doing okay, buddy? You look like you just saw a ghost," Pierre remarked.

"David, why is there blood on your mouth? Where's Amelia?" Jeff asked

Before David could answer, Seb, Chuck, and MCR walked in the room. As they walked farther into the room, they saw the blood on David's mouth and noticed Amelia's crumpled form laying on the ground.

Seb was the first to react.

"David, what did you do?" he asked, his face contorted in a snarl

"I-I-I'm sorry. I d-d-didn't mean t-to," David stuttered.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" he yelled and immediately lunged for the Airbender.

David used every Airbending move he knew to try and avoid the enraged Lycan. There was a cold fury burning in his eyes and David knew that if he stopped moving, he would be dead. Seb threw a barrage of punches and kicks at David, trying desperately to land some kind of a hit. The fact that David was able to dodge them all only served to make him angrier. Finally, Seb managed to back David into a corner. There was nowhere for him to run now. As he closed in on the scared Airbender, his fingers lengthened into claws.

In a last ditch effort to preserve himself, David used Airbending to launch himself into the air and vault over Sebastien. He immediately tried to run out of the room. He didn't get very far before Gerard karate chopped him in the chest, temporarily dazing him. Taking advantage of his stupor, Gerard wrenched David's arm behind his back and held him in place. Before Sebastien could get to David, Mikey, Frank, and Ray tackled him to the ground.

"LET ME GO! I swear to God David, when I get my hands on you, I'm going to rip you apart!" Sebastien yelled, struggling to free himself.

"Seb, just calm down! I know you're angry, but we have to find out what happened first. Now, let's all sit down and have a talk about what happened," Ray said, choosing his words carefully so as to not make Sebastien even angrier.

Chuck, upon seeing Amelia, knelt down next to her and tried to find a pulse. He tried palpating her carotid pulse. It was weak and thready, but it was still there. He cursed under his breath and took a bottle out of his bag. As it had happened, they had gone to an apothecary to stock up on magical remedies and one of the potions that they had purchased was the blood-replenishing potion. He tilted Amelia's head upwards and slowly poured the liquid down her throat. After that, he healed the wound on her neck and gently picked her up and placed her under the covers of the bed.

He sat down on the other side of Amelia so that he could keep an eye on her while listening to David tell his story.

Gerard had grabbed two chairs and sat David down in one and himself in the other.

"Gerard, you can let me go now. I won't run away," David said.

Gerard shook his head.

"No, I think I'll just hang on to you for the time being," he replied, eyeing Sebastien, who was still struggling to get away from Mikey, Ray, and Frank.

The room was silent.

"So David, tell us exactly what happened. Dammit Seb, stop!" Mikey exclaimed as he punched Seb in the head. Seb growled at Mikey but stopped fidgeting.

Everyone turned to look at David.

"Well, it's been a while since I had fresh blood. I tried my best to ignore the bloodlust, but I couldn't help it. It just kind of took over. I didn't even know what I was doing," David admitted.

"That's bullshit and you know it!" Seb declared

"I swear to you Seb, I had no idea. It's like I wasn't myself. I even tried meditating and that didn't help!"

"Really Seb, give him the benefit of the doubt. He's still young. You can't expect him to be 100% in control of his blood lust. It's only been how many years since he was turned?" Gerard asked, turning to look at David.

"It's been about 10 years," David said, doing some quick math in his head.

"Exactly. It takes everyone different amounts of time to learn to control their bloodlust. It took me almost a good century to learn to fully get mine under control. You can't really be that mad at him," Frank added.

"Besides Seb, David is no different than you. Remember the first time you experienced a full moon, how out of control you were? Eventually, you learned to resist the effects of the moon and you learned to control the beast inside. David is the same way. He just still needs time to learn to keep himself under control," Mikey piped up.

"I suppose," Seb grumbled, looking at the floor, "but that still doesn't change the fact that he hurt Amelia! I told him to keep her safe, not almost kill her!"

"Seb, I get the fact that you're angry. I totally understand where you're coming from and I'm not pleased at the fact that he hurt Amelia, either, but honestly, you need to let it go. We just happened to make it back in time, we had the necessary potions to fix her up, and she's going to be okay. Besides, we have to fix this zombie problem and we really don't have time to be caught up in being angry at one another. So just let it go," Chuck said, being the voice of reason.

As much as Seb didn't want to admit it, Chuck was right. They had more important things to do than argue amongst themselves.

"All right, I forgive you, David, but let me make myself clear: if you step another toe out of line, I will take you down. Got it?" he asked as he stood up and embraced David. David nodded.

After that, they ordered food and talked amongst themselves, trying to plan what they would do once in Milwaukee. Seb refused to leave Amelia's side.

They talked for a few hours, but there wasn't anything brought up that they hadn't already talked about. Frustrated, everyone decided to go to bed early.

The next morning, Amelia woke up around noon. Her head hurt and it felt like she had been run over by a semi-truck. When she opened her eyes, she found herself staring into Sebastien's blue eyes.

"Hey there, how are you feeling?" he asked

Amelia half-smiled. "Like complete shit. I feel like I got hit by a semi truck."

"Here, drink this," Chuck said, handing Amelia a glass. It contained a yellow liquid. She regarded it strangely, but drank it anyway. Almost instantly, she felt better.

"Are we all set to go to Milwaukee?" Amelia asked, sitting up and swinging herself around so her feet dangled over the edge

"Yeah, we should have everything we need. We decided to leave tonight. It should give us plenty of time to settle in before the show tomorrow."

Amelia nodded. After making sure she could tolerate walking, she showered and got ready for their trip.

That night, they left for Milwaukee.


	13. Chapter 13

(Back with AJ)

"Now, you're going to bed, right?" William had asked the moment she'd gotten off the phone, only to have her start scrolling back through twitter.

"Wait. Holy sh- Meyong just replied to something I said months ago."

"I've heard that name before...she's one of yours, from years ago, isn't she? The group you were with in Chicago the first time."

AJ nodded, "Sure was - she's the one Pete bit, so she's pretty much just another version of me."

"Another ver-" he stopped short at the look she gave him, as she bit her lip and tried to play innocent, twirling a few blonde curls around her finger, though he knew that look alone would turn his angel into yet another devil.

He smirked, one hand pulling for the collar of her sweatshirt, tugging it off her as she protested.

"If she's anything like you I don't think he gets alone time much," William continued, noticing she'd thrown her phone to the far corner of the tent and had leaned up into him.

His hands found her shoulders quicker than he meant to, and in one move she was on her back, curls splayed over the pillow, fangs gleaming in the soft battery-powered lamp light.

"You make that sound like a bad thing, darlin'. What guys like you want alone time? It's amazing how long it doesn't take to be addicted to one's presence...and hold up," she giggled, cocking her head sideways, "I'm not stupid, that's the look I always do."

"What look?"

"You totally just eyefucked me, you sly dog." She can't help laughing, but even this turns to a quick shriek as one hand pulled her wrists above her head, his lips finding her neck, free hand slipping into her sweatpants.

"Tonight's a little more than just the eyes, sweetheart. And after this you're sleeping, we both know your stamina level crashes early."

She could only mumble in agreement before gasping as his fangs sunk in.

It wasn't long before the four of them had repacked everything the next morning, stopping back at AJ and William's apartment to switch out clothes and grab a few things to deal with the zombies incase anymore trouble got in their way on the way up.

By the time the four actually got into Milwaukee, everything seemed oddly calm, there wasn't a single mention of zombies among the locals, and the atmosphere felt welcoming and warm despite the weather.

The show was the next night, so the four of them spent the day idly wandering around downtown, between the museums and food and shopping there was plenty to do to keep them busy.

Of course, who they ran into was a complete surprise.

It was during one of the local winter festival street shows, occasionally the group would find vendors selling crafts or homemade cupcakes or jarred fruit spreads or art every few blocks, as the city liked to hold a winter showcase similar to the summertime outdoor rummages of northern counties.

Walking past one, one of the paintings almost gave AJ a heart attack with how quickly she recognized it. She wouldn't have noticed it if it hadn't been the cover for the wintertime TAI song she'd so much enjoyed, but there was no denying it.

The original cover art for Winter Passing was framed before her, and a closer look at the signature made her heart skip a beat.

Tugging on Sisky's sleeve, she points it out, but he already has noticed, and is looking for the same thing she is. He's got to be here, this is all his stuff. Wonder if he's changed like the rest of us?

The soft rattling of brushes being set down and someone moving has all four's eyes looking towards the canvas some twenty feet in front of them, and when the man behind it stands to stretch, his eyes automatically light up with nostalgia.

"What the hell are you guys doing here?" he laughs, but Sisky's already two feet from tackle hugging the former drummer, yelling the nickname the man hadn't heard in atleast five years.

"BUTCHER!"

AJ only smiles watching the two, feeling William's hand grab her own. It's like watching brothers that go to different colleges reunite during summer break - one of those moments that just makes it seem like nothing ever changed.

Butcher lifted a hand and waved, telling the other three to come closer, although he wasn't trying to pull away from Sisky, who had pulled the man into the tightest hug he could manage.

"Man, it's nice to see you guys again. Adeline? You're still - wow. William, I would've thought -"

"We're getting married." AJ says, and surprisingly this is the first time she's calm about the news.

Butcher smiled, giving and approving nod toward William before finally requesting Sisky let him breath.

"So...I know it's been years since the breakup, but you're all almost here, you're only missing Chislett. What's the occasion? Just felt like coming up for the day?"

"More or less. There's a bit of a situation in Chicago and we needed some time off - and Jon Walker has a show here tomorrow night, at the Riverside."

"Oh, that place - yeah, it's perfect for his type of music, it's really a beautiful place. And what's going on in Chicago? I've heard stories over the last few days, some people say it's really bad."

Sisky nodded, "We're hoping its just an isolated incident, but it's...zombies, of all things. Good thing we spent enough late nights on the tour bus playing video games, killing them has gotten easier. Doesn't seem like Milwaukee's been too bugged by it."

Butcher shrugged, turning to look at the art around him, mental pangs of designing the drumheads for old TAI gigs hitting him like a slap in the face, "This city's always been pretty quiet, compared to what you guys are used to. You guys probably want to get going to your hotel or wherever you're staying before you miss check in, I won't keep you. And congrats again, Adeline."

William had seen the look of sheer remembrance and borderline regret in leaving the band in the first place in the artist's eyes, and put a hand on the man's shoulder.

"We've arrived to places later, although as Dandies I do normally prefer to be on time for such things. I think tonight I can make an exception. And, if you'd be willing, perhaps you'd like to join us tomorrow at the show? I hear tickets are still available at the door," he offered.

"Yeah, that sounds like it'd be fun. Who knows, maybe Chislett'll hear fate calling and we'll run into him, it'll be like a family reunion!"

"Yeah if only you would actually listen to me and not run off and get yourselves killed," Adeline added under her breath.

Carden smirked.

"Oh look who's talking now? Back in Robinson Woods the first time if I remember right, you almost got all of US killed!"

"Oh shut up, YOU'RE the one that went after Amelia, who STILL hasn't forg-" William slipped his free hand over her mouth, trying to shut her up, glaring at Carden as he explained to Butcher more of the recent happenings.

When he finally finished, everyone nodded, and Adeline actually tried to bit his hand.

"But I mean, we're hoping to get everyone together again. Then if everything calms down we can start thinking about the wedding, but with being as impatient as this one is, I don't think they'll be much thinking involved." he ended, lifting his hand to ruffle AJ's curls.

She only rolled her eyes, "I'm gonna go find the local starbucks, okay guys? I'll meet you back at the hotel later."

The next afternoon, the five met up again at the same Starbucks AJ had found the afternoon before, as she had insisted they get coffee before the show to keep them alert to any possible supernatural occurrences.

"Do you seriously have to take a picture of what you're drinking everytime you order something?"

AJ managed to keep herself from playfully slapping Sisky as the group walked down the steps from the coffeeshop, wanting to get to the show early and wait.

"Wait. I smell junk food." she paused, coming to a dead halt at the corner, looking around. And sure enough, a little metal sign, partially blended in the building's coloring, read, 'Milwaukee Cupcake Company'.

"There! Cupcakes!" and before any of the boys could stop her, she'd taken off, and had disappeared into the building across the street.

"Suppose this means she'll be impossible to handle later...caffeine and sugar. What was I thinking, letting her talk us into coffee before the show?"

When the four caught up to her, she was already counting the cupcakes beneath the glass, trying to figure out exactly how many she could eat before the caffeine would get to her, that way she could maintain a buzz and not crash until much later that night.

"Look at these. Red velvet with cream cheese buttercream, and - look - they're topped with sugar rose petals. Rose petals - wow, it's been years. The Fever era was the best, and these just remind me of the vest."

Both Sisky and Butcher grinned.

"Not that vest - you know he lost it right after the tour ended right? Thing's probably torn to shreds just off the coast of New Zealand somewhere." Carden added, looking at some of the other cupcakes, in truth everything looked really good.

"What the hell happened to him, anyways?"

"I have no fucking clu-"

"First of all, after Panic! split he went and formed The Young Veins with Jon, who had also left but eventually things didn't work and they broke up too and Jon did his solo stuff which is why we're seeing him tonight and Ryan laid low and laid around with cats for like for-fucking-ever but now has started to release a few demos even though his manager Shane Morris is a fucking douchebag, kinda like Brendon these days from what I've heard, but that's besides the point and-" AJ inhaled, intending to continue her rant before someone interrupted her sitting at a nearby table.

The person had began to sing, and the moment AJ recognized the song her jaw dropped.

"Where I belong, the glitter is gone, I'm done with the dark

I know I've been wrong, and I hope it's where I belong, oh,

where I belong, the glitter is gone, I'm done with the dark

I know I've been wrong, and I hope it's where I belong, yeah, well I know."

"RYAN!"

And although he looked nothing like the guitarist the fans would have remembered during the Fever or eras, it still definitely was him.

"Why does it seem like I'm running into people I've met before left and right? First Butcher and now you guys, oh hey, you brought him along. So you're going to Jon's show tonight? That's what I'm here for as well. It'll be an interesting night, California's been having some, uh, problems."

"Zombies?" William offered, Ryan nodded, "Same."

"Looks like things are going just fine then. Come on, we better get down to the theater if we want to make doors!" AJ yelled, absentmindedly tugging at the sleeve of the Vegas-born guitarist., who laughed and allowed her to pull him along almost out the door.


	14. Chapter 14

By the time Jon was on his last couple of songs, everything had thought the concert definitely was something worth going to.

That is, until one of the stagehands and the guitar tech came onstage, effectively pausing the concert.

They were talking quietly to Jon, whose eyes widened as he nodded.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry, but due to outside circumstances my current song will have to be my last, sorry for this." Jon apologized, so glad he still had the ability to control emotions, making sure to keep the crowd levelheaded.

The whole group exchanged a look.

"Ten to one it's-" Sisky.

"Don't even say it." William.

"If it's really that we're-" Adeline.

"Fucked." Carden.

And sure enough, not a minute later, someone in the crowd broke the ranks at the sound of the backstage door being roughly knocked to the ground, accompanied by a droning moan of what could only be that of the undead as they filed into the theater, drawn to something.

Within seconds it was chaos, the seated concertgoers dispersing in all directions with startled cries, some unsure where to go.

"Here we go again."

The six move as quick as they can to help people get out of the way, and after mostly everyone is gone, they bound up to the stage, as even the security guards and theater workers have fled.

"Jon? This was an awesome show - but I think we got crashed by zombies." Ryan pointed out, not surprised at the knowing smile the comment received, although everyone realized the moaning of whatever few creatures that had crashed the party had stopped.

"Long time no see, hey? And yeah, Chicago's had this problem for awhile. A good four or five days, but I guess they're migrating." he shrugged, running back towards the rear entrance of the building, everyone following.

What they didn't expect was to see a pile of zombies - not moving, having obviously been killed swiftly and effectively, and a certain somebody perched atop the nearby speaker cabinet.

William felt the energy in the air change immediately as Ryan stepped forward and growled, as if he was thoroughly confused.

"You break our fucking mutual on twitter - my LAST way to keep in touch with you and then you just come back and you show up seven and half years later? The hell, Bren?!" he shouts, and even though everyone knows he's trying to act royally pissed off Ryan can't help but running forward and hug the lead singer of the band he had originally formed.

"It's not like I wanted to leave all this on bad terms...figured you guys could use some help, the air just hasn't felt right and I swear, it's like conferences all over again. It's nice to see you Jon, sorry we crashed your show, these guys wouldn't shut up," Brendon Urie explained, further driving a small pocket knife deeper into one of the zombies' heads, "And besides, I've been meaning to get into touch with you all. Sarah and I are getting mar-"

"DON'T!" William objects, laughing because he knows what the m word will do to his fiancee, but Brendon continues, "Married next summer. And uh, she wants some of the bands I've toured with to show up."

AJ smiled.

"Well, that's great news! You're not the only one though," and with a giggle she flashed the half-carat diamond solitaire ring William had proposed to her with, "But congrats."

"This is awkward. If it's like a conference again, where's the mutt and his friends? And the girl you're normally hanging out with?" Brendon asked, and AJ shrugged, "We're bound to run into them sometime soon, they can't hide forever. And...Brendon, how many have you killed so far? I still hear-"

"Run." Ryan states, looking back toward the entrance to the theater, noticing shuffling movement any normal human couldn't possibly have.

"Oh come oh, they can't even-"

"If you want to live, take my hand, and run."

Just as one manages to climb up onto the stage from the ramp hidden behind the curtains opposite the side everyone is at, William uses a burst of telekinesis to lob a few drumsticks at the creature, aiming for its head.

It only groans louder and adapts a look of apparent rage on its face.

"I think you pissed it off, sweetheart. You can't just hit these things, you gotta stab 'em!" AJ called, motioning to follow Brendon who already was out the back door, (goddamn could he move) *I just needed to make that Ms. Jackson reference*.

Everyone else followed the lead, and as the zombie continued to advance, the eight waiting for the right moment to strike. As soon as it was close enough, the group tugged the large metal door shut on the zombie, splitting it in half, blood and innards spilling everywhere.

Ryan grinned, "Huh. This is alright. These zombies don't seem like much of a threat."

In response, Jon tapped his shoulder, "Dude, you spoke way too soon. We gotta figure out a gameplan, and fast. Because look."

And then, they saw, ambling towards them with an uneven gait, was a herd of maybe twenty to thirty zombies.

"Now we run?" Sisky asked, some fear flickering in his eyes.

"And fast." Butcher added,"There's a storage warehouse somewhere around here we could corner all these guys into and pick 'em off one by one. Come on!"

And with that, the entire group went for it, hoping one of them wouldn't get bit and that they could get out of this relatively unharmed.

Meanwhile, Amelia and her group had had somewhat of the same problem, they had managed to corral the zombies into an abandoned warehouse, one of the ones that Butcher had been talking about.

Everyone worked hard to try and destroy as many of the zombies as possible. Amelia hung back, trying to heal anyone who needed it. Everything had been going fine up to that point, except there was one thing that no one could have predicted: there were already zombies in the warehouse.

Just when they thought they had gotten rid of the last zombie, a wave of them came out of the darkness and surrounded them. Amelia turned and looked at her comrades. Everyone was bruised and bloody, and with the zombies steadily advancing, there was no time for her or Chuck to try and heal anyone.

"We have to keep fighting!" Sebastien declared

"Are you crazy?!" Gerard yelled "There's too many of them! We need to retreat and try again later!"

"I think we can take them!" Seb argued

"Seb, listen to Gerard. If we try to take them on right now, we're just asking to get slaughtered. It would be a suicide mission!" Chuck said, being the voice of reason

Before Seb could say anything in reply, Mikey turned his head towards the entrance of the factory and squinted, as if he was concentrating.

"Mikey, what do you hear?" Ray asked

"I'm not sure. Hold on," he said as he strained to listen. Meanwhile, the zombies still approached. Pierre and David worked together to try and keep the zombies at bay, but it was clear they were becoming

exhausted.

Mikey strained his ears, trying to hear over the din of the zombies groaning. It was then that he heard a tiny click. There was no mistaking that noise.

"EVERYONE GET DOWN!" he yelled and not a moment too soon.

Bullets began to rain down on the zombies from an unknown assailant. Thinking quickly, Pierre erected a shield of concrete on all sides to protect everyone from the bullets.

"What the fuck is this now?!" Someone yelled, but there hadn't been time for a reply.

Pierre had managed to make a hole in the shield so that he could see what was going on. Bullets rained down all around them. Zombies were falling left and right. After a few moments, the shooting stopped.

Pierre dismantled the concrete structure and everyone was able to stand up. As the smoke cleared, they noticed a figure standing in front of them about 20 yards off. The figure held two 9mm guns. They were shocked into silence. Though this figure had let his hair grow and had a bushy beard, there was no mistaking those bright blue eyes.

"Bob?" Amelia asked, stepping forward

The moment that she stepped forward, Bob raised his gun towards Amelia and clicked it. She froze on the spot.

"Hey Bob, it's me, Amelia. You remember who I am, don't you? I'm your friend," she said, raising her hands to show that she meant no harm.

Bob scoffed at her words.

"Yes, I remember who you are, but you're no friend of mine. You associate with them," he replied as he cocked his other gun.

Frank, Gerard, Ray, and Mikey came up alongside Amelia.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing here?" Mikey snarled

Bob turned from Amelia and instead pointed the gun at Mikey.

"I just saved all of your asses. The least you could do is show me some gratitude."

"Why should we show you anything except the door? You wrote us out of your life," Gerard said, his voice calm and collected.

"I just did you all a favor and all I get is anger and hostility. I see that I've wasted my time. Should have just let the zombies get you," Bob said, turning around to leave.

With a growl, Mikey leapt towards Bob and tackled him to the ground.

"Eight years, man! EIGHT FUCKING YEARS! You left us eight years ago without any kind of explanation and then you just show up out of fucking nowhere and expect us to welcome you with open arms?!" he yelled, smashing Bob's head into the concrete

"At least I wasn't the one who broke the band apart!" Bob yelled back, struggling to get free

Mikey was sitting on top of Bob, pinning his arms to the ground.

"Do you think we really wanted to give up the band?! The band was everything to us!"

Bob smirked though he was in pain. The blood trickling down his face made his grin all the more demented. "Must not have been too important if you let your egos get in the way and ruin things."

Mikey growled again and increased his pressure on Bob's left upper arm, satisfied when he heard bones break. A grimace of pain worked its way across Bob's features.

"So you killed a couple of zombies. Big deal. You think you're special?"

"Actually, I do. I certainly did more than you guys did, cowering in the corner!"

"You think you're so high and mighty now, don't you?! You leave us and go hide in the woods for eight years, then you come back and kill some zombies. Do you want a fucking gold star?"

"You have no idea what I went through in those eight years!" Bob said, defending himself.

"Yeah, well you don't know what we went through either! You don't know how many nights Gerard and I spent looking for you. We wanted to try and work things out, but you're too stubborn! You always were!"

"I might be stubborn, but at least I'm smart enough to know when to walk away from something when it's dead!"

"You mean like your wife?" Mikey challenged A look of both horror and rage appeared on Bob's face. He struggled even more violently, trying to free himself from Mikey's grasp.

"Yeah, that's right. I heard about that. Your wife Caitlin gets attacked by a rogue werewolf and instead of letting the change take place, you chickened out and killed her yourself," Mikey said with a cruel smirk.

With a last burst of strength, Bob managed to free his right arm and sit up slightly. He raised the gun and pointed it right at Mikey's heart. Everyone gasped. He was at point-blank range. If he shot, even a werewolf as strong as Mikey would not survive.

"Don't you ever bring up Caitlin again you son of a bitch, or I swear to god, I'll fucking kill you," Bob said, his voice cold.

Mikey leaned in closer to Bob and the barrel of the gun pressed harder against his chest. Bob steadied his hand and placed his forefinger on the trigger.

"Do it," Mikey challenged, his voice deadly.

Beside Amelia, Gerard visibly tensed as he readied himself to rectify the situation. He only hoped he could make it before Bob pulled the trigger.

Mikey's brown eyes burned into Bob's blue ones. Just when it looked like he was going to pull the trigger, Bob scoffed and with his good arm, he managed to shove Mikey off of him. He stood up and brushed himself off.

He approached everyone with caution. Everyone was eyeing him suspiciously, especially after his confrontation with Mikey. Mikey went back to where Gerard and the others were standing.

"Is anyone injured?" he asked as he put the guns in holsters and took his wand out of his pocket.

"You are," Amelia said, moving forward slowly. "I can help you."

She instructed Bob to slowly sit on the ground. Grabbing a pair of rubber gloves out of her bag, she began to assess the wound on his head. Though it was still bleeding, it wasn't very deep, meaning that she could easily heal it with Waterbending. She first cleaned the area around the wound and got rid of the blood. Then, she very carefully put water on the wound and moved her hands in a circular motion, just like Chuck had taught her. In a few moments, the wound was gone. She removed her gloves and sanitized her hands.

"Wow, is anyone else getting tired of someone constantly being at someone else's throat?" AJ asked, having just walked in from the unguarded entrance, (honestly if their had been anymore zombies around Amelia's entire group could have been taken by surprise) and although what she had said wasn't really a question, it probably would have sounded better as an 'I'm so sick of this' statement.

Amelia gasped, great, leave it to most of the Dandies to show up now.


	15. Chapter 15

With a sigh she realized that indeed most of them were there - William, Sisky, Butcher, Carden, Ryan, Jon and Brendon. The only one really missing was Spencer, and Amelia guessed he probably was the only one of them safe from all of this because he was still in rehab for his own problems.

"Considering you're the one that causes most of these problems, it's a little sickening, yeah." she replied, trying to be neutral, still remembering how her last conversation with AJ had ended up.

"Great, everyone's here. Wonderful. Can I kill myself yet and spare myself the trouble?" Frank joked, protesting as Gerard elbowed him in the ribs to shut up.

"You're all okay?"

Everyone with AJ looked themselves over before Ryan answered, "I think we'd know if any of us had gotten bit. But yeah, it's alright, we're alright. You alright?" he turned to Brendon, who cracked a grin,

"Yeah, I'm alright, you alright, AJ?"

"Yeah, I'm al-"

Amelia internally facepalmed.

"DON'T. Even. We need everyone to just stay chill. The less fighting among ourselves, the better because we're not enemies - the zombies are. Everyone got that?"

Nods all around, although Amelia couldn't shake the fact that she knew Carden was, once again, staring at her. She felt herself relax a little bit as Seb's arms wound around her, and for once she maybe understood why AJ was calm when William held her, things just felt...safe.

AJ, meanwhile, had stolen a glance at William, who was shaking his head, mouthing a, "Not yet, no reason."

*flashback, Fall, right after the creepypasta stuff started acting up*

"You two are NOT tearing apart my living room, I don't care how much you get into it." The last almost-fight between Carden and Seb had broken yet another picture frame when it fell off the mantel of the fireplace, and AJ had had enough.

"Oh come on, he started it!"

"And look who's healing you because I asked her to, not because she wanted to now that this is the third time you've pissed her pretty-much-boyfriend-by-now off enough to want to tear your face off," AJ replied, smiling at Amelia as she worked to get the teeth marks off the vampire, being Chuck had given up on healing the unruly Dandie every ten minutes whenever he wanted to start something.

"And you're welcome. And AJ - he's NOT my almost-boyfriend-by-now or whatever you said!"

AJ giggled, "Fine, boyfriend it is then."

"That's not any better!"

AJ could only smirk as she turned to leave the room, intending to find William and update him on things.

"I'm so sick of him not being controlled, that's the third time this week they've almost gotten into it. I thought us Dandies were supposed to be the classy ones...and I know Mike's only going after Amelia to annoy Seb and Mikey, but still. He doesn't have to pick a fight with everyone."

William sighed, paging through the fifth or sixth folklore and local ghosts book he'd found earlier that week at the library.

"Even after he'd just turned, it was the same. He and Brendon used to be just as bad, they absolutely hated each other, partly because Mike was always into tricking people with those illusions of his and Brendon would stop him whenever possible due to his mentalism."

"No, I mean...I mean-" taking the book out of his hands, she set it on the table and sat down in his lap, grabbing his hands and looked into his molten chocolate brown eyes.

"I mean for once it'd be nice if you would jump into the frey and be the one to start something. Just because."

"Because is a word, not a reason, love. And I highly doubt I'd have a valid reason in the first-" she kissed him.

"Aren't you listening? I said just because, we'll think of something as it comes up! You don't have to do this now like tomorrow - could be later on, we just need the right trigger to explain it!"

"Adeline, I still don't-" letting go of one of his hands, she set it against his chest, curling her fingers as she dragged manicured nails down the button up he wore. She giggled, knowing she only really used nails when the two were alone, when it was meant to hurt for far more reasons than just a little strike of pain.

He growled, wishing they were back in the old mansion in his office so he could just see what that old desk could take (not that he hadn't thought about it before, but he knew the idea seemed interesting enough to her), but did nothing but blink and try to remember exactly who was around.

"S'il vous plaît, mon cher? Pour moi?" she asked, trying to act completely innocent.

He sighed, still deciding. Getting up, he still kept her in his arms, carrying her bridal style to the door before setting her down and leaning into her, kissing her forehead.

"Fine, I'll do it."

*end flashback*

She sighed, "Oh come on. Practice sparring maybe? You haven't had a decent round in years..."

Stepping into the middle of the room, William looked around, noticing the wasn't much to run into, and there was enough open space to get some good exercise in in the form he hadn't used in almost two hundred years.

He smirked, looking over Amelia's group, noticing how she kept glaring at Mike.

"I realize you're all tired from the recent round of zombies, but we have training time, and it'd be nice to get everyone back in shape." William started, not surprised when David huffed.

"Yeah what's wrong, you're so ancient you got winded running a few blocks to arrive late to the bloodbath we started?"

William's upper lip twitched, but Brendon replied for him before he could open his mouth.

"Watch it half breed, he wasn't asking for a reply!"

"Brendon. That's the girl said, we don't want fights. I'm only suggesting a quick sparring round...Mikey ,Sebastien, if you'd be so inclined as to join me?"

Mikey and Seb looked at each other, "Why us? Why not your men?"

"Because," William rolled his eyes, growing annoyed already at the number of people involved, "You two are the only ones that could manage to subdue me in the form I'll be using."

The entire room had puzzled expressions, but they didn't last long as there was a loud cracking sound that distracted everyone from their confusion.

Because instead of where the six foot three singer had stood, there now was a direwolf with a dark brown topcoat and a tan underbelly, deep brown eyes taking in every single reaction around him.

Everyone was amazed by the fact that William was able to assume a wolf form, though no one was more amazed than Frank and Gerard. The two looked at each other, looked back at William, and then back at each other, mouths agape.

"Did you know that he could do that?" Frank asked

"I didn't know that he could do that. Did you know that he could do that?" Gerard replied, amazed

Frank shook his head. "Do you think that we can do that?" he asked, looking at Gerard with delight

"I have no idea. I've only heard of certain vampires being able to do that, usually if their lineage is descended from the original vampire, Dracula himself," Gerard explained.

Though Frank's smile dimmed slightly, his eyes still twinkled with excitement.

"Oh man, but that's so cool!"

AJ giggled, "I know, right? No wonder he kept saying we were Starks as far as Game of Thrones went - I never knew he could turn into the sigil!"

"Seb, be careful." Chuck warned, slightly taken aback by the size of the wolf, a direwolf was roughly half the size bigger than a normal grey wolf.

"I'll be fine, Chuck. I don't think it'll be much of a challenge," Seb replied with a smirk.

"This'll be interesting." Ray observed, noticing Mikey had actually smiled at the challenge in front of him.

"Don't actually kill each other, we all need to be alive later!" Pierre called, before both Seb and Mikey phased.

It was interesting to note the differences between the three wolves. William's form was akin to a regular wolf. He walked on four legs and behaved like a wolf in the wild. Mikey and Sebastien, on the other hand, were actual Lycans, meaning they were more of a combination of a wolf and a man. They both were tall creatures were thin, wiry, and had grey fur, and stood and walked on two legs. Each had a set of razor sharp teeth and claws on the end of each finger and toe.

Mikey looked at Sebastien and gave him what would have been a smirk had he still been in his human form. This was going to be fun. He was still a little worked up from his confrontation with Bob and this was going to be the perfect opportunity to let the beast come out and play. With a fierce growl, both he and Sebastien leapt towards William, who dodged the two before turning around and play bowing, a sight that only sent AJ into another fit of giggles.

"Oh god he's like a giant puppy with the way his tail is wagging. This is way better than Twilight, I can't even."

And then William struck, rushing forward with heavy paws aiming for the other two's legs, jaws snapping. Mikey and Seb worked together against the larger wolf, parrying this way and that trying to confuse him, so whenever William went for one the other one would swoop in and land a few hits, claws raking along the thick dark fur.

"If one of them gets their arms around him, what're the chances he'll end up like Jacob with half the bones on the right side of his body shattered?" AJ asked, mildly curious before she realized there was perfect opportunity for her to start a fight of her own.

Realizing if she and Amelia did get into something, there was nothing Seb or William could do to stop them, so she wanted to act on it.

"You know, now that everyone's together, you think I'd be a bit more happy about the upcoming wedding, now that everyone knows about it. But I'm not. I'm royally pissed off still at one particular person." AJ started as she walked over to Amelia, who automatically put a hand on the skein at her side.

"You've got nerve - this whole practice thing between the three of them was your idea, wasn't it? I imagine you probably want to have a round of your own."

AJ nodded, "Let's see if your waterbending's gotten any better over the years...or if college brainwashed you into forgetting all the fun times."

The blonde struck a fighting pose, hand raised in a 'come-and-get-me' motion. Amelia rolled her eyes, but drew some water from her side all the same.

"Alright then, let's go, princess. You probably haven't gotten any better either. And come to think of it, once we went our separate ways, you have no idea what I went through in college! You don't know how many late nights I spent studying my ass off. You don't know how stressed I was! You don't know how alone I felt, knowing that my best friend was off galavanting with her stupid boyfriend while I was all alone in a big city!"

AJ dodged the streams of water here and there, realizing Amelia was using the fight as an excuse to blow off steam. In return, AJ only decided to piss her off more.

"Correction," she started, spinning to throw a punch which was blocked, before she tried a high kick that ended in Amelia grabbing her ankle which threw her off balance and put her to the floor, scrambling to her feet as William howled on the other side of the room, one of Seb's punches having nailed him in the nose the same time Mikey had bit down on one of his back legs. "Fiancé. Have you not seen the ring? OH THAT'S RIGHT. You don't care. What a loss it'll be that you won't be there...I did hope to change your mind, the bachelorette party just won't be the same without you being there to keep everyone's feet on the ground...OW, FUCK!"

Amelia had grabbed AJ's shoulder and dug her nails in, her other hand grabbing for AJ's other arm, trying to bend it back, knowing she could do more damage if it were a fist fight instead of waterbending, although she had somewhat gotten back into practice thanks to Chuck.

"You really think you're going to talk to me about loss? You don't know anything about loss! You don't know what it feels like when you've been working with a patient for weeks and months on end and despite everything you've done, it's still not enough and they end up dying on your watch!"

AJ grinned, shaking her head.

"And see, if you'd let one of the boys turn you you wouldn't have had that problem - you could just turn your patients and save them if need be, like Carlile did. And then maybe if you were a vampire, this -" AJ jumped despite the hold Amelia had on her, and her knee collided with the older girl's chin upon impact, "Wouldn't hurt so much."

Amelia scoffed, turning her head to spit, not surprised at the taste of blood in her mouth, she must've bit her tongue and that's why there was blood.

"One, WOULD YOU SHUT UP WITH TWILIGHT?! And two. You like to think that you're so much better than me just because I'm a human and you aren't. Well guess what, sweetheart? You're no better than any of us. You're just a spoiled little bitch who gets everything handed to her and who gets angry when things don't go her way. You've never actually had to work for anything, even when we were kids! People like you disgust me! You claim that you want respect, but you haven't done shit to earn it!"

AJ's eyes widened as she ducked, avoiding another punch.

"Now I really pissed you off, this is fun! A couple more shots like that and you might actually hit me! That's it, give in to your feelings...the darkside's not so bad once you get used to it! And hell, we have cookies."

Both girls glanced around the room, unsure how long the fight had been going on for. The three were still going at it, although it was obvious the energy level was decreasing with every move.

"First you're making Twilight references, and now it's Star Wars. I swear, sometimes it's like you never grew up. It just annoys me that you must think that I am weak and fragile and defenseless, but you are wrong. And for once, it looks like you'll be the one who needs saving." Amelia stated, deliberately glaring at AJ as she got ready to use the one card up her sleeve she knew the younger girl wouldn't be able to fight against.

When AJ went to make her next move in what would have been a reverse low back kick to open up some space between the two of them, she found she couldn't move, couldn't even bend her fingers.

"What the hell, Rae? That's not fair! You don't see me using telekinesis; you don't get any special abilities either!"

It was Amelia's turn to smirk as she closed her free hand into fist as she looked at AJ, planning to end the match the same exact way a pack leader showed lower members who exactly was the boss. And being that AJ couldn't fight it, Amelia was going to use bloodbending to bring AJ to her knees.

Of course, something in the back of her mind warned her not to listen to what AJ had said - part of her really wanted to just lay into blonde for the years of trouble they'd gotten into, back what they were currently in even though Amelia hadn't wanted to be involved in the first place.

"Wrong."

But just as Amelia had concentrated enough to use AJ's body against her will, there was a shout from somewhere behind her and she lost focus, turning to see Ryan struggling to restrain Brendon, who was trying to interrupt either one of the fights.

"BRENDON NO!" Ryan yelled, but it'd been too late, the singer was about a foot and a half from getting in between AJ and Amelia.

AJ looked at Amelia and shrugged, before her eyes settled on Brendon and something in her reasoning snapped.

Thanks for wrecking one of my favorite bands. Normally I wouldn't do this, but I just have a feeling you're gonna get us killed later on so I'll all do us a favor now.

The entire room reacted to the second sharp crack that day, but instead of ogling at the large honey brown she wolf, they were mortified by her sudden pounce on the vampire in front of her, paws holding down his arms as her jaws encased his head and tore it clean from his body.


	16. Chapter 16

Everything was still, for about two seconds. It hadn't even really registered to AJ that what she'd just done was something very very bad.

Before Amelia can react, another vampire is barreling at full speed towards the she wolf, intent on destroying her because she had just killed his best friend.

Ryan Ross wasn't the sort of vampire you wanted against you in a fight, he was a copycat, meaning he could steal and use the abilities of any vampire he'd ever came into contact with. Just as he warmed up to use the electricity harnessing ability he'd grabbed from Chislett and give AJ the shock of her life, he thought about what trouble he could get himself into for going after her, but fuck, she had just murdered Brendon in cold blood for no reason.

Ryan didn't care, he wanted revenge. And he'd have it.

Grabbing one of her ears to hold on, his other hand locked around the wolf's muzzle as he swung himself on top of the animal so he could cause the most pain possible. He let all the energy go that he'd been preparing, not surprised at the ear splitting howl it resulted in, she thrashing violently to get him off.

When she finally managed to throw him off, Ryan hit the floor and skidded.

The next growl heard put everyone into action, AJ had collapsed and was still twitching feebly from the shock, tail sticking close to her body in complete submission.

Ryan looked up and put a hand to his head, not expecting to be an arms' length away from sabre-tooth tiger looking fangs, and a gaze that clearly read he would die if he made another move.

"RYAN MOVE!" Jon yelled, but no-one heard him, everyone was moving.

Seb and Mikey had turned back into their human forms, debating whether or not if they should jump between Ryan and William. Gerard and Frank weren't really paying attention, still trying to figure out if any of what had just happened had actually happened.

Sisky, Butcher, Carden and Chislett ran to Adeline, who still hadn't phased back, although she'd stopped twitching and instead was whimpering, clearly in pain.

On instinct, Ray, Jeff, Chuck, David and Pierre run to the seemingly paralyzed vampire, and drag him out of the way just as William leans forward and snaps his jaws a little too close for anyone's comfort.

"Holy fuck Ryan…you just. Damn. You don't know how close to dead you almost were." Jon stated once Ryan was sitting up, but to his surprise the guitarist only pulled him into a hug and cried.

William, meanwhile, seemed calm for the most part, though internally he was livid at Ryan's decision to use his abilities on Adeline, instead of channeling his anger in a different way.

He padded over to the honey wolf, who immediately tried to stand, but became shaky. Allowing her to lean against him for support, she was able to sit up, eyes cast downward and entire posture submissive, terrified of his reaction.

Instead, William only licked the side of her face and nuzzled the top of her head, surprised she could also assume a wolf form.

The minute Amelia went to walk toward AJ to see if she was okay after all, William growled. Absolutely no one was getting near her.

"Great, there's a fucking fluffy saint Bernard protecting a wimpy little retriever that got shocked because she was asking for it. How long til they're human?" Mikey asked.

Sebastien didn't even try to reply, he regretted going along with the sparring idea anyways, and now Brendon was dead and William was close to killing anyone that got within five feet of the wolf at his side.

It was quiet. No one knew what to say, or do. William stood guard to AJ, who had Sisky and Carden petting her to help keep her calm, as over the recent years she'd grown prone to panic attacks.

Chislett and Butcher were on William's other side, trying to think of what to say that could patch things up, no one wanted another conference fight.

Jon wished his ability would have worked on everyone, but he could only extend it's scope so far, and right now, Ryan needed it the most.

Most of Simple Plan stood in a shocked silence, surprised AJ had single handedly taken out a vampire completely unprovoked.

Gerard and Frank looked around, hoping all the fighting hadn't drawn anymore zombies into the area, they group was tired as is.

Ray sighed, wishing everyone would just work together while Mikey stood beside him and absentmindedly clenched his fists, wishing he'd fought to kill instead of simply sparring with the Dandie leader.

And Bob meanwhile, had said nothing the entire time. This was not a good thing, at all. Everyone was basically counting on him to explode in a few seconds, and no one was disappointed.

He first used a spell that would amplify sound, and then he let off a deafening bang from the end of his wand. Everyone turned to look at him.

"I can't fucking believe you guys. I guess I thought that not seeing each other for almost 9 years would have done something, but I guess some things just never change. I'm going to tell you all something and you'd damn well better listen: this shit stops RIGHT NOW! We are facing a possible worldwide crisis here and we have ABSOLUTELY NO TIME for infighting. Now, this zombie problem is running rampant in the South where I live now, so I have a good idea of what we're up against and I know a lot of things that can help us. I know that I've been away for a while and that for some of you, it's going to take a while for you to trust me again. I don't blame you at all. I've been acting really selfish and I want to apologize. Sentimental crap aside, now more than ever, we need to work together. I also just want to give you guys a warning: I've seen zombies attack people that I care about and in order to protect my own skin, I've had to kill them. If any of you get bit, I will not hesitate to kill you in order to keep everyone else safe. Now that that's out of the way, we need to heal Adeline. Amelia, Chuck, come here. You guys are going to help me," Bob said as he crossed the floor to where Adeline lay.

William growled dangerously and bared razor sharp fangs. Bob pointed his wand at him.

"You need to let us help her, Beckett, and I swear, if you make one move towards them," he said, gesturing to Amelia and Chuck, "I will use the Killing Curse on you. Now move."

Reluctantly, William stepped aside, though he didn't take his eyes off of Bob. Adeline had changed back into her human form, and the damage was extensive. There were multiple third degree burns all over her body, as well as cuts and scrapes from her scuffle with Amelia. The smell of burned flesh hung in the air. Amelia was no stranger to grotesque injuries like this, being an ER nurse. She swallowed back her anger and frustration and began to assess AJ.

"AJ, it's Amelia. Can you hear me? I need you to squeeze my finger if you can hear me," she said, relieved when she felt a tiny squeeze. She was still conscious.

She palpated her radial pulse, counted respirations, and assessed circulation.

"Her heart rate is irregular and 120 bpm, way too high. Her breathing is shallow and slow and her circulation seems to be slightly impaired. We need to work fast. I wouldn't suggest trying to move her," she reported.

Bob and Chuck nodded. Chuck took a potion out of his bag and poured it down AJ's throat.

"To help with the pain," he explained, when William gave a suspicious growl.

"I'm impressed, Chuck. You know your magical remedies," Bob said with a slight smile. "Now comes the hard part. I want you to heal the wounds while I use some healing spells. After that, we'll put Dittany on the wounds so they don't leave scars."

Amelia and Chuck nodded. Both of them placed the water on AJ, starting at her feet and working their way up. It was a slow process as the two worked together to heal the wounds while Bob recited healing spells. Once all of the external wounds had been healed, the two of them placed Dittany over her entire body in order to prevent scarring. All the while, Bob continued with his healing spells. The whole process took almost an hour. During that time, no one made a move or a sound. Finally, the work was done.

"All right, we've done all we can. Now, she just needs to rest, and it doesn't look like we're in any condition to go anywhere, so it looks like we'll be staying here for the night," Bob said, standing up.

The warehouse was big enough that it gave each group enough room to sort of stretch out, and after some of the stuff had been moved around it was almost like little rooms had been created. Everyone had had enough sense to pack some sort of emergency kit, so they were sleeping bags and enough stuff in the warehouse to make the floor not seem so unbearable.

Thanks to Pierre being able to metalbend they even made a makeshift firepit of old machinery, filling it with various things that would burn just to give off a little heat and calm everybody down. By the time the fire died however, there was no denying how tired everybody was, so nobody argued when someone called for lights out, if the zombie problem really was as bad as Bob had said everyone needed all the rest they could get.

And of course, almost everyone was asleep – all but four people anyways.

"Seb, are you still up?" Amelia asked, not expecting a reply but smiling when she got one.

"Yeah…after all that today I can't sleep. I'm too busy thinking myself to death."

She sat up, half crawling out of the northface sleeping bag she hadn't quiet managed to zip up all the way, laughing slightly.

"You and me both. I just can't believe AJ did that…I mean, I know she's never really liked Brendon, but she didn't have to kill him."

Seb nodded, motioning for her to come by him.

"Grab your sleeping bag – here. Upzip it all the way so it lays pretty much flat, I'll do that with mine and we can lie on one and cover up with the other. I mean, if you're cold, it's probably better to be next to somebody, it's not like – well I mean everybody pretty much already knows, considering AJ doesn't shut up, but still."

Amelia grinned, immeadiatly scooting over and fixing the sleeping bags like he'd suggested, after which she laid down on one of them and tried to figure out how to pull the other one over herself, not surprised when she felt Seb slip an arm around her and readjust it so it covered both of them.

She turned into him, more than happy for the heat the minimal distance between them had created.

"Do you always use survival instincts to pick up girls? Because it's working." She pointed out, sighing as she felt him kiss her forehead.

He half rolled his eyes and put a finger under her chin to get her to look at him, green eyes meeting blue.

"Really?" she giggled, already feeling the butterflies coming on.

"Everyone else is asleep. Well, we probably know who else is awake, but it's not like the same thing isn't happening on the other side of the room," he countered, kissing her gently.

She practically melted into it, after all of the crazy shit that had happened that day this was just the thing to top it off, neverminding the thought of AJ and William across the room.

"Now come on, we don't know what kind of trouble we're going to get into tomorrow…we need sleep."

And suddenly an idea hit her.

"Well, I know. But…what if we went back to Chicago? I mean, it's the Dandies hometown, and you guys and My Chem are pretty used to it. And there is a place we could all use for a base, it's the old location of the hospital I now work at, sorta this decrepit old horror-moive place. I'm sure zombies wouldn't think there's any point in checking it out."

Seb thought about this for a moment, an old hospital probably would come in handy with all the supplies and things that would be left over.

"That sounds like it would be an idea to check into. I'll talk to the guys in the morning. But for now – let your mind just clear and try to get some sleep."

She nodded, before another possibly stupid idea hit.

AJ had tried so many times now to teach her French, partly due to the sole explanation of 'you're in a relationship with a Canadian you need to know some stuff' and the only words that had stuck were 'I love you.'

It certainly had been long enough for her to say it, and if it didn't seem official that they were a 'thing' her saying it probably would make it that way, and then maybe AJ would leave the teasing alone for once.

So, spending maybe two more seconds to think about it, she leaned in and kissed him, afterwards murmuring a soft "Je t'aime" before turning over and closing her eyes, smiling as drowsiness began to sink in.

She didn't notice how wide his eyes had gotten when she said that, nor that he too was smiling the rest of the night, hoping she would be in his dreams despite the fact that she'd be sleeping peacefully beside him when he woke.

Meanwhile, on the otherside of the room, Seb had been right. AJ was awake, purely because she was still running on adrenalin from what she did to Brendon and then what Ryan did to her.

"These sleeping bags suck." She commented half-heartedly, sitting up and looking around. William wasn't around, or atleast she didn't think she saw him.

Feeling hands slip over her eyes, she internally cursed at the 'guess who?' she heard mumbled.

"Don't do that, it makes you seem childish," she scolded, not exactly in the mood to put up with the head of the coven acting like the youngster sire.

"What's gotten into you? You get shocked and almost die and all of a sudden you're turning into – pardon my french – the exact bitch you can phase into and I didn't even do anything!"

Her eyes widened, William had never said anything like that before.

"Did you really just call me a bitch? REALLY?"

"Oh calm down love, I meant it as the animal sense of the word, not your personality, although at times others would disagree."

"Can you not?"

"Not what?"

"That. Everything. Can we forget this conversation? I'm still in pain. And these sleeping bags suck," she repeated, giving him a look, and this time he got what she meant.

"You're not using me as a pillow, I don't care how injured you are." He teased, but the damage had already been done.

"Wow, some gentleman you are. What happened to you? I get shocked and all of a sudden you're no better than some of the band members you used to tour with."

He sighed, before another crack sounded, and in front of her was the same brown direwolf from before, bowing its head, tail between its legs.

"Aw, I made the big bad wolf feel bad…" she smiled, reaching out a hand to scratch behind one of his ears, "You know we're only in one of these sarcastic little spats because of everything that happened, I know you're not serious."

He smiled, licking her face before nudging her shoulder with his nose for her to get up, and when she did he laid down and pawed the floor beside him, indicting for her to lie back down.

She did, surprised to find the outer coat of the fur where she rested her head actually wasn't as coarse as everyone thinks fur is, and beside that fact he was warm.

"Thank you."

She smiled, hearing he make some sort of noise in acknowledgement, and then closed her eyes.

Who knew what would happen tomorrow?


	17. Chapter 17

The next day, everyone woke up feeling mildly refreshed. The first thing that Bob did when he woke up was to go check on AJ, who was feeling a lot better. After that, it was decided that everyone would return to Chicago. AJ practically squeeled in excitement at the thought of seeing the mansion. Now with Bob back, it was easier to get back to Chicago since he could help Apparate those who couldn't teleport. They gathered up their things and went back to Chicago.

Everyone had decided that they needed a little bit of down time, so William and his men went back to the mansion and everyone else went back to the hotel. They agreed to meet at the old Mercy Methodist Hospital at sunset. While everyone could admit that it was nice to have some peace and quiet, there was still a large amount of unease in the air because no one knew what was going to happen next. Finally, it was time to leave. They gathered up their supplies and departed. Amelia texted AJ the address. Thankfully, it wasn't too far from where there were currently staying. They met up outside the hospital.

"So, this is the place?" William asked, looking at Amelia

"Yeah, this is where the Chicago Metropolitan Hospital used to be located. Back in the day, it was called Mercy Methodist Hospital. It was abandoned more than 100 years ago. As far as the history goes, there's not much that's really worth noting, except that this was one of the hospitals that treated patients stricken during the 1918 outbreak of Spanish influenza. It should be relatively safe here," she said.

"Aw man, I was hoping it would be one of those sanitariums, like we used to watch on those ghost hunting shows when we were kids!" AJ said, pouting slightly

Amelia couldn't help but laugh. With that, they made their way into the hospital. With a quick flourish of his hands, Pierre used metalbending to demolish the fences with the "DANGER! KEEP OUT!" signs and everyone entered the property. Almost at once, everyone felt a sense of foreboding.

"I don't like this. There's a lot of negative energy here," David said.

"I agree," Jon remarked.

"Well, of course there's going to be negative energy. People have died here," Amelia piped up.

Once they entered into the abandoned building, they took a look at their surroundings. Lots of old patient files littered the floor. Old machines and gurneys stood still in the hall, as if they were waiting for their next patient. The entire building was dark, made worse by the quickly setting sun.

"If this is going to work as a base, we're going to need electricity. Chislett, I want you and Ryan to follow me. We're going down into the basement to see if we can get the electricity working. Frank, why don't you come too? You can redirect lightning. That should help. Everyone else, split up and canvas the place. We don't need any surprise zombies ambushing us. We'll meet back here when we're done," Bob said, taking control of the situation.

"Sounds good to me," Chislett agreed.

Amelia sighed. If there was one thing she hated (of which there were many), splitting up was definitely one of them. Out of instinct, she made sure that she stuck a little closer to Seb.

With that, Bob took his wand out of his pocket and illuminated the end of it. Chislett, Ryan, and Frank all followed behind him as they began their descent into the bowels of this archaic institution. Once they were out of sight, everyone split up. AJ, William, Carden, and Jon went one way, Butcher and Sisky ran down another hallway, and Gerard, Mikey, and Ray went down another hallway, leaving Seb, Amelia, David, Pierre, Jeff, and Chuck to go down the last hallway.

"Hey Chuck, do you have any flashlights?" Amelia asked

Chuck nodded, although she couldn't see. He handed her a flashlight, which illuminated the corridor. She walked in front, followed by Sebastien, then David and Pierre, and Jeff brought up the rear. It was incredibly spooky. The light from the flashlight case gruesome shadows on the wall. As she peered into each of the rooms, she couldn't help but wonder what it was like to be a nurse in the time of Spanish influenza, where the patients were dying faster than you could bury them.

They had been walking around for almost ten minutes, when something brushed Amelia's hand. She jumped and shined her light, thinking it was Seb, but he was walking ahead of her. When something came up behind her and whispered her name, she screamed.

She heard a thump as something fell to the ground. She shined the light in Seb's direction and found him pinning Sisky to the ground.

"Dammit, Siska! Don't do that!" Seb yelled, baring his teeth

Adam laughed as he stood up and disappeared into the darkness again.

"Stupid little shit," Seb muttered as he walked back toward his friends.

Before they could say anything else, suddenly the lights flickered and then the whole of the building was illuminated!

"I can't believe that they actually got this to work," Jeff said in amazement.

"I know, right?" Chuck agreed

Since the lights were back on, they knew it was time to meet up with the others. Sebastien lead the way, keeping his nose to the sky, trying to discern Bob's scent from that of the decay of the old building. Eventually, they found everyone again, waiting by the reception desk.

"Did you guys find anything interesting?" Bob asked as they approached

"No, it's pretty much deserted, but there's still a lot left to see. I just can't believe how much this building has decayed over the last century," Amelia remarked.

"Just be careful when you're exploring. We don't need anyone falling through a rotted out floor or anything like that," Bob advised. Everyone nodded and then went back to exploring. Amelia and the others decided to go down into the basement to see what it was like down there. Although initially hesitant to go, Amelia felt safer knowing that Sebastien and his friends were there with her.

They walked down several flights of stairs until they finally reached the basement. The lights down here were few and far between. Overhead ran series of water pipes. Every now and then, Chuck and Amelia tried to see if there was water in any of the pipes, but it had long since evaporated. The first time that one of the pipes rattled, Amelia laughed.

"Jeeze Chuck, I know you really wanted water to be in the pipes, but there's no need to rattle them like that," she said with a smile.

"That wasn't me! I thought that was you," he replied.

Amelia tried not to let her imagination run wild. Every so often, one of the pipes above would shake, like something was making it move. It unnerved her greatly.

"Seb, there's no one else down here with us, is there?" she asked

Seb stopped and sniffed the air.

He shook his head. "I can't smell anyone besides us."

Before she could say anything else, all of the pipes started rattling at the same time! It made no sense, but it still managed to scare Amelia. She didn't believe in ghosts, but after what she'd been through, anything was possible. Nothing, though, could have prepared her for what happened next.

One of the pipes came loose from the ceiling and seemed to launch itself through the air, stopping only when it impaled itself into Pierre. To everyone watching, it seemed like it was happening in slow motion. One end of the pipe entered through the lumbar region of his back and exited through the front of his stomach. His eyes widened in shock and he gasped. Pierre's hands fumbled, trying to find the source of the pain as blood dripped out of his mouth. A large red stain appeared on the front of his shirt. He swayed twice and collapsed to the ground.

Jeff was the first one to react, being the closest to Pierre. He caught him as he fell and sunk down to his knees. Amelia snapped out of her stupor and ran to Pierre. Chuck had pulled out his phone and was yelling at someone. David was kneeling next to Jeff and Amelia, hanging onto Pierre's hand for dear life as tears ran down his face. Pierre was deathly pale and the red stain on the front of his shirt was growing larger by the minute.

Amelia immediately began assessing vital signs and none of them were stable. Before she knew it, everyone else had found them and were gathered around.

"Jesus Christ, what happened?!" Bob asked as walked over to them

"I-I don't know. We were exploring and all of the sudden, all of the pipes started rattling and then one of them detached itself and Pierre just happened to be in its path," Amelia said, finding her voice.

"Shit, that's not good. How are his vitals?"

"Weak and erratic, and if we don't do something quickly, it's going to get a whole lot worse."

"Well, you're the nurse. What should we do?" Bob asked

"It's risky to try and remove the object, but if we can at least cut some of it away, maybe I can see how bad the damage is," she replied.

"How bad the damage is?! Jesus, the guy has a freaking pipe sticking out of him! How bad do you think the damage is?" Carden remarked and Amelia glared at him.

"Bob, I need you to cut his shirt away from the pipe so I can see the skin underneath. Ryan, come here," Amelia instructed.

Ryan came over and knelt down.

"Do you have the ability to metalbend?" she asked

He nodded.

"Good. I need you to cut about a foot of this pipe off for me."

Both of them did as they were told, which gave Amelia the chance to look at the wound. The wound was ugly and there was blood everywhere. She sighed.

"Without getting him to an operating room, there's no way I can tell how badly he's been injured internally. I can try to heal him, though," Amelia announced.

"What good will it do?" Sebastien asked quietly

"What did you say?"

"I asked what good it would do! It doesn't matter what you do, Amelia. He's dying!" Seb exclaimed

"No, he's not, he's just - " she started

"DON'T LIE! You know that he's dying just as much as any of us do, and there's nothing that you can do about it!"

Amelia knew that he was right, as much as she didn't want to admit it.

"Well, there is still one thing you can do," AJ said.

"Please, he's too far gone for me to turn him into a Lycan. It wouldn't do any good," he huffed.

"Actually, I was more or less referring to David."

At this point, David's head snapped up.

"What? No, I couldn't possibly do that, not to Pierre," he replied, his eyes wide.

"Well, it seems like you have a choice to make, then. Either you turn him, or you let him die. The choice is yours," William stated, his voice grave.

David immediately looked to his friends. He looked utterly helpless.

"What should we do?" he asked

"I don't know. We can't let him die," Chuck stated.

"But do you really want to turn him?" Sebastien asked

"You guys better hurry up! His pulse is getting weaker. I don't think you have much time left," Carden said, a sick smile on his face. AJ didn't waste any time in smacking the back of his head as hard she could, geez, he really needed to learn to shut up.

At that point, their minds were made up. They knew what they had to do.

David gently turned Pierre's neck to the side. His skin was starting to get cold. He gently bit down and drank some of his blood. As he did, he saw Pierre's memories, all of them. He saw themselves as middle school punks and later, high school chums. He saw them playing together, first as Reset and then as Simple Plan. He saw all of the good and bad times they had had together. At that moment, David knew his heart wasn't in it. He withdrew his fangs and wiped his mouth.

"I-I-I can't. I can't do it. I won't do it," he said, his voice trembling.

With a pleading look, Sebastien turned to look at Gerard, who nodded.

"I'll do it," he offered. He crossed the room and knelt down by Pierre. Gerard drank his blood and then allowed Pierre to drink his. All they could do now is wait.

Once Gerard was finished, Bob and Amelia went to work on healing the wound, deciding that what Gerard had done would give them some kind of a safety net. Sebastien, Chuck, David, and Jeff were all silent, shocked at what had taken place over the last few minutes. David buried his head in Chuck's shoulder and sobbed.

"Wow, how fucking pathetic are you guys? Getting so bent out of shape over a mortal? Sheesh, you guys make me sick!" Carden declared.

Sebastien, Chuck, and Jeff gave him the dirtiest of dirty looks, but none of them made a move.

Something in AJ's head clicked, these pipes wouldn't just come apart on their own, no matter how old the place was. Somebody had to force them to come lose, and that was only possible with telekinetic abilities. And then the likelihood of who would actually have the nerve to do it.

She needed to do something about it before he got himself killed, although on second thought maybe him being dead would finally put an end to things.

"Shut up," David said quietly.

"I'm sorry, did you say something, half-breed?" Carden asked

"I SAID SHUT UP!" David yelled

As soon as the words left his mouth, everyone felt a breeze begin to blow through the room.

"You didn't know him! You have no right to say anything!"

"Aww, looks like I struck a nerve. Poor little baby. What are you doing to do, get the wind to blow me over?" he laughed, clearly enjoying this.

David didn't respond. He was taking deep breaths in through his nose and exhaling through his mouth. All the while, the air around him began moving, circling him like a predator stalks its prey. Without warning, he thrust his hands out towards Carden and the air responded by rushing forward and slamming Carden into the wall. Before Carden could get up, David bore down on him, a ferocious hate gleaming in his eyes. He summoned every ounce of power he could muster. Everyone else had to jump back to avoid being hurt. He created razor sharp gusts of wind and launched them all at Carden in quick succession. The only thing that Carden could do was try to run, but by manipulating the air currents around himself, David was easily able to keep up with him. Everyone was absolutely stunned by this sudden change in David.

Immediately, Seb and Jeff tried to stop him.

"DAVID! YOU HAVE TO STOP THIS! CALM DOWN! YOU'RE GOING TO DESTROY THE BUILDING!" Sebastien yelled, trying to be heard over the deafening roar of the wind

He and Jeff tried to run towards him to break his focus, but David simply moved his arm away from his body in a sweeping motion, sending out a blast of air that slammed the two of them back into the wall. Jon tried to take control of the situation, but his ability was useless. David was too out of control.

Finally, he managed to back Carden into a corner. There was nowhere else for him to run. He approached Carden and this time, no one tried to stop him. When he was an arm's length away, the air around him stopped moving and the entire room was still. He pinned Carden to the wall by his throat, who struggled to escape. Though he was much shorter than Carden, there was a fire burning behind David's eyes that made him seem bigger. When he spoke, his voice was low and quiet, yet at the same time, it was strong and confident.

"No matter how much I may hate you, and no matter how many times you disrespect me, I refuse to sink to your level. When I first began my Airbending training, I was taught that all life is sacred and that everyone deserves respect and so I made a vow to respect all forms of life. No matter if you are an ant crawling under my feet, or if you are a god among men; I will still treat you with the respect that you deserve. But let me make myself absolutely clear," he continued, squeezing Carden's throat tighter, "if you fuck with my friends ever again, I will not hesitate to break that vow, and I will destroy you and everything you stand for."

He loosened his grip on Carden's throat slightly and spun around, thrusting his hand out. Carden went flying down the hall and smashed into a wall. David turned on his heels and walked back up the stairs, leaving the room stunned into silence.


	18. Chapter 18

But of course, the minute he's able to get up, he's again trying to say something while not thinking about it, which is when AJ decided to finally do something. "I don't even think- Ow, let go of me you aggressive little fairy!" Carden protested as AJ had walked over, one hand landing in his hair, nails curling in for a tighter grip as she tried to drag him away from the situation so someone else wouldn't murder him.

"Shut up. Now walk." She snapped, and momentarily he was reminded of William whenever the elder vampire was entirely done putting up with everything.

Reluctantly, Carden allowed AJ to led him away from the group, calling an "I'm going to take care of something real quick," over her shoulder.

At that, William turned to Sisky, who only shrugged, "I'm sure she knows it was him. She'll talk some sense into him."

Three minutes later she'd pulled Carden into an elevator and taken it to the next floor, intending to talk to him about the whole thing.

The minute the two stepped off of it however, she immediately realized what a bad idea it'd been to separate the two of them to a different floor.

"What the hell were you thinking?! You think you're so smug, always causing trouble and acting like you didn't do anything. I can understand you messing with Adam and Andy and Michael again, but to go after Simple Plan?"

"I wasn't going after the entire band, just so you know." He remarked sarcastically, already annoyed.

"Still. I realize you like pissing off of Sebastien more than anybody, which is why you're always going after Amelia, but that doesn't explain why you'd just dislodge a water pipe and intentionally hurt someone!"

He shrugged, walking a little closer to her, not surprised when she turned on her heels to back up a few steps and strike an assertive pose.

"It's gotta stop, Mike." She stated, trying to hide her anger at the thought of Amelia freaking out, knowing she saw most of Simple Plan like older brothers now that Seb was technically her boyfriend.

He only smirked, and AJ looked around, trying to think the easiest way out of this if things got bad.

"And who is going to make me, hm? Listen here princess, you might think you're entitled to so much more power in this coven than the rest of us just because William turned you and you sleep with him, but that's not the case. Your friend had a point – you're a selfish little bitch that gets finicky when she doesn't get her way, power included."

"Take that back, you-" she paused, unable to think of a valid insult to put into words, instead, she only rushed at him, hand balled into a fist.

He sidestepped her and caught her arm with ease and bent it behind her head until it dislocated her shoulder with a light pop, his other arm going to her side, hand gripping her hip, making her immobile as she attempted to free herself.

"LET ME GO!"

Carden only rolled his eyes, knowing exactly how he could piss her off further.

"Hush, mon cheri. You're not going anywhere. You're right where I want you, and you can't get out of this – your center of gravity's been compromised, and as long as I've got this hold, you can't move. Convenient for the girl that thinks she's quite the little matriarch that needs to be put in her place," he explained, watching her eyes widen at the familiar French term of endearment.

"DON'T YOU DARE STOP TALKING LIKE THAT, YOU'RE NOTHING LIKE-"

She shuddered as he let go of the arm he'd bent, it hanging limply at her side as he brushed curls from the nape of her neck, she shaking her head so fast to try and prevent him from finding a place to bit, knowing where this was headed.

He laughed, grabbing a handful of hair to keep her head still, kissing her neck as she continued to fidget against him, trying to free herself.

"My, someone doesn't like to listen, does she? This won't hurt at all, compared to the shock Ryan gave you, no, you might even enjoy this."

And before she could even manage another word in protest, Carden had sunk fangs into her neck; hand in her hair loosening to run down her body, lost in the feeling of her finally being his for a few moments.

Her blood had a burn to it that he couldn't ignore, for as much as he could guess this was due to William having been the one to turn her. But even as he drank, he saw that there had been a time when he might have had a better chance than the current moment – back when the band had still been together, before AJ met all of them at the bar all those years ago, her memories revealed she had initially fallen for him – not William.

This realization only set off the side he usually reserved for tailing drunken girls at the clubs that would let him get his way – the hand trailing over her begin to claw at her clothes, the thin striped scoop neck t-shirt tearing under his nails, exposing pale skin that he knew wouldn't stay that way for long.

Her mind had gone fuzzy the very moment his fangs slipped in, and vaguely she was aware that she was making some sort of noise, something the vampire taking advantage of her was clearly interpreting as pleasure due to the hand that had been running down her body started pulling at her clothes.

She shivered as she felt her shirt tear, and then suddenly snapped back to reality as that hand began to massage and lightly scratch at her side and stomach, never minding the dizziness and haze her mind was in due to how much of her blood he'd already drank.

Automatically her good hand was up, pushing against his head, trying to get his mouth off her neck. Even applying as much force as she could, it ended in no result. Knowing there was only one way to get out of this, she closed her eyes, hoping to high hell that the telepathic link still would work.

'William…Adam…somebody, help.'

Down two floors where everyone else was, things had calmed down some. Amelia for once had picked up one of AJ's habits, as she was pacing half of the hallway, still in shock when she realized that not only did the group have to worry about more infighting and zombies, but they'd also have a bloodthirsty newborn earth-bending vampire on their hands.

"Amelia sit down, you're going to fall through the floor," Ryan teased as he leaned against the doorframe of one of the old operating rooms, trying to decide if he should head in and start looking for weapons in case they would ever need them, not that anything was likely to be left behind.

"Yeah, that would be all that I need," she muttered, still pacing. She couldn't believe everything that had happened in the last hour.

After David stalked away, no one really knew what to do. They decided to get out of the basement, so they went to one of the floors and decided to set up their base. It had been decided that in the interest of keeping everyone else in one piece, they would have separate floors. Their first order of business was to make sure Pierre was stable. They used an empty room. Bob conjured a multitude of supplies, including several mattresses for people to lay on. Sebastien gently laid Pierre on the mattress and planted himself at his side. Chuck and Jeff were there too. David was nowhere to be found. Bob had tasked Amelia with caring for Pierre's wound. It was healing nicely, which meant that turning Pierre had been effective. She sat in the room with everyone for a while, but the silence was killing her. Eventually, she couldn't take the silence and walked out. Shortly thereafter, Ryan had found her.

She stopped pacing and sat down on the floor. Ryan sat down next to her.

"Hey Ryan, can I ask you to do me a huge favor?" she asked, looking at Ryan

"Sure, what's up?"

"Can you go talk to them?"

"About?"

"About this! This whole thing with Pierre. I've been sitting here, racking my brains, trying to think of something that I can say to them, but for once in my life, I can't think of anything! I don't know how I can make them feel better about what happened. I feel so helpless and it hurts my heart to see them all in such pain. I mean, you've recently lost someone you were close to...maybe you can think of something? Please," she pleaded

Ryan sighed yet he smiled.

"Sure, I can go talk to them."

"Thanks! While you do that, I'm going to try and find David," she said, standing up.

The two of them walked in different directions. It wasn't a very big hospital, so there weren't many places he could be. She walked up and down hallways until she was on the top floor. There was only one other place he could be. She walked up the stairs that would lead to the roof and stepped out onto the roof. She noticed a figure sitting on the edge of the roof, dangling his feet over the edge. She approached him cautiously.

"David? It's me, Amelia," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey," he replied without turning to look at her.

"How are you feeling?" she asked

He shrugged. "Cold. Empty. Sad. Mad. Tired. Bad...I don't know. I'm feeling a million different things right now."

"Do you want to talk about how you're feeling?"

"No, not yet."

"Okay. I just want you to know that I'll be here whenever you feel ready to talk," she said, turning around to leave.

His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.

"Can you please stay here with me? I don't want to be alone, but I can't go back there right now."

"Of course I can," she replied, sitting down next to him.

He let go of her wrist and the two sat in silence for a long while. Amelia started to shiver. The night was cool.

"Come on, let's go back inside now. You're getting cold and the last thing we need is for you to get sick," David said, standing up.

The two of them walked back inside the building and Amelia got a good look at David's face. It was tear stained and he looked utterly exhausted. When they got outside of the room where Pierre was, Amelia found Ryan outside.

"What happened? I thought I asked you to talk to them," she said.

"I tried, but they refused to say anything without David there," he replied.

"Well, I'm here now, so let's go try again," David suggested.

The three of them walked in the room and almost immediately, Seb walked up to David and enveloped him in a giant hug. Amelia took a seat next to Chuck on the floor.

"How are you doing?" she asked as she sanitized her hands to look at the wound again.

"I'm doing okay, I guess. I still can't believe this happened. I mean, never in a million years would I have thought that this would happen, especially to Pierre. After David was turned like, 10 years ago, I never expected that I would have to go through this again. It's going to be a big adjustment," Chuck said, sighing.

Amelia lifted up the bandage and saw that the wound had mostly healed. She reapplied a bandage and sat back.

"Yeah, it's definitely going to take some time to get used to this, but just like when this happened to David, we're going to get through it, together," Jeff said and everyone nodded.

"How are you feeling, Seb?" Amelia asked

David was sitting cross legged next to Jeff and Seb.

"I'm not sure yet. I mean, I'm angry at the fact that this happened, but I'm sad too."

"I know how you guys feel," Ryan said, taking a step towards the group.

"Please, how could you possibly know how we feel?" Seb scoffed, slightly baring his teeth at Ryan

"Well for one thing, I'm an empath. I can't control emotions like Jon can, but I can sense them. Plus, I've lost a friend recently, too. Don't forget that AJ killed Brendon."

"With no reason," Amelia added, and this only made Ryan look at her and shrug before continuing.

"I can't say I can blame her from jumping the gun and doing something, I mean, it was pretty obvious he'd changed. Jon, you remember how he'd been before the split, things were cool, right?"

The former bassist nodded, "Everything was fine back then, seemed like nothing was wrong."

"But I mean, with Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die? It's like, come on, could you be anymore self absorbed? Don't get me wrong, he can still sing, but his lyrical style is nothing compared to mine. And then there's the fact that he just seems to not care about the fans anymore, back when we were us, he'd always stay and wait for little meet and greets, and from what I've seen lately he doesn't even try to say hi after shows, asides from stage diving in the last song. He's just not the same, well, he wasn't."

"So you didn't like the change either." Jon stated, Ryan agreeing instantly.

"You know, AJ would be agreeing with you if she were hearing this." Amelia started before she noticed that she hadn't even seen the blonde since she'd walked off with Carden earlier.

"Speaking of which, where is she?"

Everyone looks around before the thought finally occurs to them – she's probably in over her head in trouble, again.

"We shouldn't have let her walk off with him." Seb says, but Ryan holds up a hand to object, "You should've seen her in the mansion back in the day, she could get both Brendon and Carden under control with a simple glare, it's obvious William is rubbing off on her. She's just got that control thing down."

"Where's she now, then? I don't see her, do you?" Seb challenged.

"Maybe if somebody would've killed him in the first place we wouldn't have this problem!" Ryan shot back, absentmindedly pointing at David, who in turn had raised his voice at the other vampire, "Go look for her and you can do that yourself!"

"EVERYBODY STOP IT! We're all worked up still over all of this – Ryan you're still mad about Brendon, Seb, you and David are worried about Pierre. We all just need to calm down and be quiet. Just breathe."

Beside Amelia, Chuck smiled. In the short time she'd been with the group again, she had really gotten the waterbender mindset down, learning to just step back and think about things.

"I'll go look for her. She can hold her own against most of the boys, but with Mike I'm a little worried of what he could if he manages to get the upperhand." William spoke from the doorway of the room, knowing well enough to create some distance.

In truth, something in his head had screamed at him that he needed to find her, actually, it had been AJ's voice, pleading for help. He knew she would never resort to their telepathic link unless something was truly wrong, so when William heard it he knew it was bad.

"We'll come with." Both Sisky and Butcher are on their feet, having been exploring the surrounding operating rooms, growing tired of seeing nothing interesting.

"No, you won't. What you could do, however, is see that the one of the rooms on the far side of the hall is set up, as I have a feeling we'll be needing it when I return."

"As in?" Sisky wondered.

"We'll see, simple as that. I don't want to say anything in case I jinx it. But see that it's done, I'll be back." And with that, William turned for the elevators; really hoping things wouldn't be as bad as he thought they'd be.


	19. Chapter 19

The minute he stepped off of the elevator two floors up, the scent of blood hit him. His upper lip twitched in a snarl, there was no way Mike was getting out of this alive.

The hallway was lit, but that probably made it worse, because he saw right away what had caused the snarl.

AJ was pinned to the wall, one hand feebly trying to push Mike's head off her neck, the other limp at her side. Her shirt had been completely torn open, and scratches and lines of blood were visible running along her sides and stomach, droplets of blood on the almost sixty dollar white lace-accented bra he'd bought her not a week before.

How her eyes found him, he had no idea, but in the single moment their gaze connected he felt every single human emotion come back into full force – particularly rage and confusion.

She was the first to break eye contact, her hazel eyes rolling back slightly into her head at the same time Mike finally pulled away from her, lips stained red with her blood. Her body went limp in his arms, and he sighed, content with the scene before him, as she slid down the wall; her eyes struggling to open, mouth too dry to speak.

"See? And you know even William wouldn't be this good." He taunted, making the mistake of not noticing they weren't alone.

"Y-you s-sick son of a b-bitch," Adeline managed, though she felt too weak to try to move.

"Oh come now doll, I only wanted to teach you a lesson!"

"I hope he murders your immortal ass when he finds us. He's not going to let you live after this…when he sees me, he'll just-."

"Oh, he will. I'm long past trying to reason with your stupid little lovebird tendencies. It's about time you knew who really deserves you." Mike explained, kneeling to her level, attempting to lean in to kiss her before something knocked him clear out of range, fists aiming for any part of the younger vampire they could reach.

This was too fast to be a lycan, and the controlled method in which the punches were thrown only made Mike crack a sick smirk.

"So, enjoy the show? She's not too terribly hurt, I didn't quite get as far as I would have liked."

This remark only earned his shirt being grabbed and pulled off his feet into the air, faces inches from an absolutely livid William.

"You. Vile. Excuse. For. A. Vampire. I'm not yelling because you know by now that that sort of noise is useless, true uncontrolled anger appears in those that seem most calm. Being so, I'm close to doing what Adeline did to Brendon. Do you know how easy to would be for me to phase and remove your head from your body?"

Mike's eyes only widen, the thought seemed rather appalling that William would even consider such an idea to one of his own sires.

"1. 2. And 3." And on three, William let go of his shirt, instead rotating on the spot to throw a backick, sending Mike flying into the opposite wall for the second time that day.

Satisfied with the impact and after making sure he wouldn't be getting back up in the meantime, William ran to Adeline, who was struggling to even get on her knees.

"WILLIAM! I'M SO-" her voice cracked as tears ran down her face, throwing herself into his arms with what energy she could manage, knowing how bad it looked.

"You're alright…sweetheart, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere."

"B-But h-he…" her good arm drops, runs over the marks left on her, she winces at the pain, looking up at him with puffy eyes.

"He'll never touch you again, darling, I swear. On my immortal life." She shuddered and tried to recoil slightly at how suddenly venomous his voice had become, but then he began to him something and she found herself being lifted into his arms.

William turned with Adeline in his arms to see Mike standing up, bending fingers back into place, wiping blood from his mouth as he glared from across the hall.

He smiled, to which William used a short burst of telekinesis to cause the light fixture above the younger vampire to come crashing down, not even sorry about it.

Adeline sighed.

"I'm sorry. This was my fault…I shouldn't've tried to talk to him alone…forgive me?"

He nodded, careful to walk slowly toward the elevators in case she was still dizzy.

"You did nothing wrong. He tries something like that again; you have my full permission to kill him."

Not expecting his angel to smile at the statement, William knew she'd be just fine.

When the two made it back down into the floor where most of the others were, Amelia was the first one to catch them.

Taking in the sight of a deathly pale and barely conscience AJ for the second time in three days, she shook her head.

That was before she noticed the scratches, the blood droplets – how dare he.

"Did he-" she started to ask, noting the lack of the blonde's clothes, or atleast the shape of what remained

on her.

"No, thankfully. I found her just as he probably would have done something much worse." William replied, following Amelia as she led him down the hall to one of the rooms.

"Sisky and Butcher set this one up like you told them to, we've put new sheets and stuff on it, I'll have Bob conjure up some meds of something for her."

William nodded, carefully setting AJ down on the bed, who immediately visibly relaxed against the coolness of the sheets.

"Thank you for the offer, but it's best if we do this the way we're used to healing. It's safe to say Mike certainly took more blood than he needed to, and I know she hasn't fed in a while. It's best if she does, and if it's from me she'll heal faster due to the fact that I'm the one that turned her, more of my blood running through her can only make her stronger while her own replenishes its supply." He explained, and without needing to be told directly it was clear he wanted alone time with her to allow her to heal.

"And how is the earthbender? Has he woken yet?" William asked after a moment, curious as to how a bender would handle the change.

Amelia was about to reply when Ryan and Jon came into the room, interrupting her.

"He's still out, as far as we know. Um, I'll leave you guys. She'll be okay, I trust you know what you're doing."

Amelia turned to leave and tell the others of the new predicament down the hall, but as she did so, she realized she had caught one of the eldest dandies' rare smiles, probably due to what she had said.

AJ had relaxed the moment William had placed her down, and when Jon had come into the room she felt even more so, mostly due to his abilities. William had said he was going to go talk to the others, mainly about he's also come to the conclusion that all of the constant arguing wasn't doing anybody any good when it came to dealing with the zombies.

Meanwhile, Jon had taken the chair next to AJ's bed, and had reached for her hand.

"This isn't going to put me in anymore pain, is it? I'm done with being put to the floor…"

He shook his head, "This isn't going to hurt, no. I'm just going to keep you calm while Ryan does his work."

"His work? What do you mean?"

She sat up faster than she meant to, and cried out in disorientation as her vision swam.

"Easy, Adeline. I'm just going to rewrite your memories a bit, make you forget what just happened."

"O-oh. But I mean...can't you fix this first?" she gestured to her limp arm, and two seconds later with a yelp her shoulder had been popped back into place.

"Ouch, alright, that hurt a bit. But thanks...and...wait, since when do you do all the memory work? I thought tha-"

Ryan smiled, "Usually, Brendon would be the one to do this, but since you killed him, I'm the one because I have his abilities. Now, I need you to slow your breathing and look straight into my eyes, and clear your mind. If it helps any to keep time, every time you take a breath, squeeze Jon's hand." He suggested.

She nodded and did what he said, and soon Ryan had gotten into her head.

He found her memories of what happened right in the forefront of her mind, as it had been traumatic and the lines connecting the event to other memories had already been etched deep through neurons. Removing some of these had been easy; a simple reconnection was all that was needed once the traumatic memory was gone.

By the time Ryan got to the point when Carden had ripped her shirt open and had begun to claw at her skin, the usually controlled and calm vampire felt his own feelings changing, he continued on in complete horror, before the mental connection broke with a frustrated shout from Ryan.

"GAH! I can't do it…It's too…I can't keep my emotions straight enough to do this; I'll have to get William to finish it. Jon, stay here, I'll go grab him."

Both nodded, Adeline lay back against the pillows and threw a slight smile at the bassist, "Thank you. Just knowing there's still people that'll watch over me like this is nice…after the split, I didn't think I'd ever see a close group of people again."

Ryan had ran down the hall and found William, immediately tugging at his sleeve, not realizing he was pulling the older vampire out of a conversation.

"What?"

"It's Adeline. I can't. The memories…I can't erase or modify them because the content is too disruptive to me. I don't know how Carden even managed to think of treating her like that…you'll have to finish it."

"Why don't you just kill him already?" Ray wondered mid-yawn, mildly annoyed that yet another vampire was disturbing the sleep everyone so badly needed, being he was dozing off where he sat. And this was after dealing with Frank insisting on using one of the abandoned operating rooms as target practice for fireballs during the last hour, bright flecks of light bouncing off the metallic furniture flashing in his peripheral vision every few seconds.

"Actually, I was just about to suggest to Mikey that he should do us the favor and kill him for us already, before Adeline or I have to make the choice for ourselves." William continued, although no one could tell if he was serious or just saying it to keep the status quo.

Amelia shrugged, "Suit yourself."

She walked back down the hallway and into the room where everyone was still gathered around Pierre. Looking at her watch, it was almost 3 in the morning and when Amelia sat down next to Seb, she realized just how tired she really was.

"Hey," Seb said, smiling.

"Hey," Amelia yawned.

"You look tired. Why don't you get some sleep?" David suggested

"Oh honey, have you looked in a mirror lately? We all look like we could get some sleep," Amelia shot back, sticking her tongue out at David.

"Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea. Pierre shouldn't wake up for a while, and we're going to need to be on our game if we're going to try to deal with a newly turned vampire tomorrow," Chuck said, forever the voice of reason.

With that, everyone spread out on the mattresses Bob had conjured and enjoyed a few hours of shut eye, well, mostly everyone.


	20. Chapter 20

William had walked back to the room Adeline was in, and smiled when he saw the girl was half asleep, twitching ever now and then, hands at her side clutching a pillow the same way they'd be holding the pelt if he'd remembered to bring it. Jon had looked up and noticed him, and with a silent nod stood and walked out of the room, but not before saying a quick, 'Call me if you need me' first.

Shutting the door behind Jon as he left, and knowing she'd probably wake the instant he climbed in beside her, he'd thought about everything that had happened earlier.

Ryan had said the memories were too personal for him to fix, and she hadn't completed healed, her blood level still was low, even for a vampire. Absentmindedly humming Cracks In the Ceiling, (her favorite song of the first full length CD he'd released) he started undressing, figuring the sooner her wounds were covered the better she'd feel.

Sighing as he stretched and took off his vest then unbuttoned the long sleeve collared shirt and put that on one of the chairs, he was surprised to hear a soft giggle as he went to pull the undershirt up and over his head.

Rolling his eyes, the thin fabric is over his head in one smooth motion, and he knows where her attention is, she's awake now, hazel eyes drifting over his body, fangs poking teasingly at lips caught between teeth.

"What is it with you and seducing me after getting into fights?" she giggled, sitting up as he turned and grinned, walking toward her in just the way that made her entire body ache for him.

"Oh?" he wondered, sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning into her, lips at her jaw. She shuddered at his breath beneath her ear, "Must just be you're worth fighting for, mo anamchara."

She inhaled at the realization this wasn't a French term – it was Gaelic.

"I..I never th-thanked you…" she whispered, breathless as he took each of her hands and turned himself so he was on the bed, facing her, her hands resting on his chest.

"There's no need, you know what I'd be willing to do for you. But you've not completely healed, Ryan says he had trouble with the memory…if you trust me enough, I'd like to straight out replace it, and you can feed while you're at it." He suggested, already feeling desire start to creep through his veins as she began curling and relaxing her fingers, much like a cat when it's kneading something to get comfy.

"Well, in that case…I trust you completely. You already know that." She chastised, lifting one hand to tap his nose before leaning in and kissing him, other hand reaching for his belt before she realized he had already taken it off.

She made a noise between a purr and a growl at the second he tried to stop her, although she looked at him.

She would have been fine if it wasn't for the fact a slick line of blood was starting to trickle down his neck, he must have scratched himself to get her attention, and before she can control herself she's launched herself on top of him, her lips sealing onto the origin spot, fangs slipping in all too easily.

William's lucky the bed's big, otherwise she probably would have just flipped them to the floor. But even

this he doesn't mind, while she's drinking he can work to clear her head.

It isn't hard to do, although he could see why Ryan had problems with the concept in the first place. By the time the entire memory of the earlier encounter with Mike is gone, he looks over her body and noticed the scratches have completely resealed, she doesn't even look like she'd been hurt, save for the blood on

her bra.

He manages to coax the blonde away from his neck. But her bloodstained lips, stuck in a shy smile, only serve to flip them back around, he licking his own blood off of her, each biting at the other's lip as the agenda begins to turn, the kisses only getting needier and deeper.

"Ah! Adeline, what the hell?!" he yelps, startled as she tugs his hair, fingers snared in a particular thick spot at the back of his head, she giggling again as the kiss broke.

"You didn't say I couldn't be rough. And you know how I like things…"

William gave her a look she'd seen way too many times.

"After the state I found you in, that's the last thing I want you doing, being rough. And besides, you also know how you get. Need I remind you of the night we met?"

She rolled her eyes, shifting beneath him, trying to create as less space possible between them.

"And again, you and trying to seduce me after fights…but come on! Marley and Adam were louder and you know it!"

William visibly cringed.

"Can. You. Not? Sweetheart I know you think you're well enough and all for that, but I don't want to…make things worse. I've still gotten enough adrenalin running through that I'm afraid I could still hurt you."

"Oh listen to you now, when did you ever worry about hurting me before, hey?" she teased.

He lowered his head slightly, as if he didn't want to admit what he was going to, but she was still able to pick up his murmur of, "I just don't like seeing you in pain. It brings back too many human emotions, that's all."

"AW! BABY!" she chirped, playfully nudging him until he turned over on his side, she curling into him with a sigh.

"I'm sorry. I need to stop being so…attached." She admitted, yawning. He smiled, ruffling her hair.

"I don't mind it in the least. Now go on, get some sleep."

She lifted her head slightly, resting her chin on his chest, staring into his eyes for a moment before she asked softly, "Can you sing me to sleep? It's been forever…"

He laughed.

"Adeline, doll, it's only been three or four days."

"Doesn't matter. Sing." She repeated, trying to adapt the tone of voice he used whenever one of the boys hadn't been listening to him.

William, picking up on this, lightly kissed her forehead before beginning the song he'd been humming earlier.

"We laid in bed and talked 'til 3 A.M. Now I'm restlessly counting cracks in the ceiling  
We fooled around, We were spontaneous Now it's calendars and inconvenience  
Caught in the current tearing us apart, But I'll keep on swimming until my arms give out  
Cause I can't let you go, oh whoa Cause I can't let you go, oh whoa  
Can't watch you drift away No matter what it takes  
I'll bring you back to shore I can't let you go…"

He hadn't gotten past the first chorus when he felt Adeline turn into dead weight against him, and he sighed, for once wishing that perhaps the entire group hadn't gotten back together – the only thing he ever wanted and needed was the girl in his arms, sleeping soundly.


	21. Chapter 21

The next day, Amelia woke up to the sound of yelling coming from the hallway. She detangled herself from Seb and carefully stepped over Chuck and David, who were using each other as pillows. Walking out into the hallway, she found Bob yelling at Gerard, Mikey, Ray, and Frank.

"What's going on?" she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes

"Oh nothing, Bob is just being an asshole again," Frank replied, glaring at Bob.

"I'm not being an asshole! You guys are just being childish. I mean, between what happened to Pierre yesterday and then what Carden did to AJ, I'm sick of trying to help you guys! You guys are hopeless and I'm done. I'm leaving!" Bob fumed

"Wait Bob, please, reconsider!" Amelia begged

"No. I'm done trying to play mediator to your constant feuding. Let me know when you all grow up and maybe I'll come back to help you. Oh and while you were all sleeping, I went and put wards up around the perimeter of the building so that nothing could get in. You're welcome," he said as he turned away, ready to Apparate out of the hospital.

As he turned away, Mikey grabbed his wrist.

"Mikey, let me go," he commanded.

"No. Listen, man, I know we've gotten off to a rough start, but come on. We need you here with us. That's the only way that this is going to work. You don't know how long we've all waited to actually have you back with us. We've missed you, man. Things haven't been the same since you left. I know it's going to take a lot to sort out our issues, but I know we can do it. Please, don't go," Mikey said as he tried to hug Bob.

Bob tried to wrench himself away, but in the end, he allowed himself to be hugged by Mikey. In truth, he didn't want to leave. For the first time in years, he actually felt like he was right where he was supposed to be. He had missed his friends, even though he'd never admit it. Besides, if he left now, he'd be back to fighting zombies on his own and that wouldn't get him anywhere.

"Okay, okay. I'll stay. Let me go now."

Mikey let go of Bob and walked back to where everyone else was standing. Before anyone could say anything, Amelia's phone buzzed. It was a message from Chuck.

"Hey Gerard, I just got a text from Chuck saying that Pierre is finally waking up. I'm thinking you're gonna want to be there," Amelia said as she turned to walk back to the room.

Gerard followed behind her. They walked in the door and saw that Pierre was slowly starting to stir. Amelia went and stood next to Chuck. Pierre opened his eyes and slowly sat up.

"Hey Pierre, how are you feeling?" Seb asked

He shrugged. "I feel pretty good actually! Nothing hurts and I feel like I could run a marathon."

Everyone exchanged glances.

"Do you remember what happened yesterday?" Jeff asked

"Well, I remember exploring the basement and then getting a pipe impaled through my stomach. That's about it. I must not have been hurt too badly if I feel this good!"

Everyone exchanged glances again.

"Uh, well, it was actually pretty bad. It was bad enough that I had to turn you into a vampire," Gerard admitted.

Pierre made a face that said that he didn't believe Gerard, so he ran his tongue over his teeth and he discovered a pair of fangs.

Amelia wasn't sure how he would react, so she was picking at the skin of her thumb, a nervous habit. Suddenly, she felt the familiar sting in her hand, meaning she had picked too far. A small drop of blood welled up.

At once, Pierre turned to look at her and he leapt forward with such ferocity that Sebastien almost wasn't quick enough to grab him.

"Shit, I forgot that he would need to feed right away!" Amelia exclaimed, embarrassed. She quickly healed her thumb with Waterbending, but Pierre still fought against Sebastien.

"Well, looks like he has to feed now. I think I might still have some blood bags in our pack," Chuck said as he started to rummage through the bag.

"Actually Chuck, it's usually best if a new vampire's first meal is fresh blood from a live person," Gerard piped up.

Chuck and Amelia both looked at each other. It was going to have to be one of them.

Before Amelia can realize what she's doing, she walked over to Pierre and Sebastien.

"You sure about this?" Sebastien asked as he struggled to keep Pierre at bay.

Amelia nodded. With a sigh, he loosened his grip on Pierre, who all but tackled Amelia into the floor. Fangs bury deep in her neck and Amelia actually cried out in pain. After a few minutes, she felt Sebastien rip Pierre away from her. Pierre, obviously still hungry, tried to reach Amelia again.

"What are you doing?" Gerard asked

"If I would have let him feed from her any longer, she would be dead. You know that. Besides, she's not the only source of mortal blood here," Sebastien replied, looking at Chuck.

Chuck gave Sebastien a nod and walked toward Pierre. He wrapped his arms around him, almost in a hug. He gasped slightly as Pierre bit him.

Jeff went and got Bob, who healed the wound on Amelia's neck and gave her the blood replenishing potion. Meanwhile, Pierre continued to feed from Chuck, who was growing pale as he feebly tried to shove Pierre away. Before Sebastien could tear Pierre away, David held up a hand.

"Let me talk to him first," he said, walking over to Pierre.

"Pierre, it's David. You have to listen to me. I know how incredible the first bite can be. It's like you're drinking water after being thirsty for a long time and I know that it's difficult to stop. But listen to me, you have to stop. If you take any more blood, you're going to kill Chuck. I know that you wouldn't want that to live the rest of your immortal life with that weighing on your conscience, so you have to stop. Let him go," David said, speaking in a calm voice.

He put a hand on Pierre's shoulder, which seemed to snap him out of his bloodlust. He lifted his head from Chuck's neck and turned to David and embraced him.

"Thanks, man. I don't know if I would have been able to stop without you. Oh shit, Chuck, I'm sorry!" Pierre said once he noticed Chuck lying on the floor as Bob attended to him. Chuck waved his hand in a dismissive gesture as if to tell him that it was okay.

"So how do you feel now?" Gerard asked

"I feel great now!"

"How is your Earthbending?" With a flourish of his hands, Pierre demonstrated an impressive array of Earthbending.

"It seems that the change has made you an even better Earthbender. Good, that's going to come in handy," Gerard remarked.

"What'd I miss?" AJ bounded into the room, William walking after her, Amelia noting the girl was (once again) unusually bubbly.

It only made sense when Amelia realized she was wearing something that had been ultra familiar to them during TAI's heyday – she had the blue vneck on from the About A Girl video, along with the leather jacket from the Santi era.

"How'd you even-"

"You really think he got rid of this stuff? He's still got the belt buckle from Slow Down." AJ responded, trying to zip up the jacket, this time actually trying to hide the hickies along her collarbone.

"Pierre's awake and feeling a whole hell of a lot better, and we're still not sure where Carden is." Jeff said, though two seconds later the entire group heard a mumbled, "Right here, guys. Nice of you to finally notice."

Walking out of the shadows of a nearby operating room, Carden continued, "So you turned him after all." He turned to look at AJ, who, on instinct, turned and hid behind William, clutching his arm and poking her head out from a safe distance.

"You know I didn't mean it upstairs," he tried to apologize, but Gerard had walked over, and after a glance at William; who nodded, promptly smacked Carden upside the head.

"Bullshit. That's for AJ, because as you can see she's worried about even being near you. Now, we've all agreed – you attempt that with her again or even think about it with Amelia; William, Sebastien and my brother and I are going to tear you limb from limb, do you understand?"

Carden snorted in disbelief, thinking it was nothing but an empty threat, but nodded anyways. Maybe it was finally time to stop trying to get himself killed, now that he had atleast four people threatening to murder him if he started something again.

"Alright, I get it. Now back off, would ya?"

It was quiet, that kind of annoying silence after tension that still hung in the air hadn't quite dissipated.

"So I had a really fucking weird dream last night." AJ started, laughing when she caught Amelia mouthing 'AJ I swear to god if it's anything like that damn book.'

"Zombies. Well, they weren't zombies. The zombies in my dream were like puppets I guess. It was like they were being controlled. I couldn't see by who, but they only went after the people around me, I couldn't figure out why. Ryan, you were the first one to die...then Brendon, then Jon - and that's the weird part. It was only Panic. And then it's weird, I swore I saw Spencer in my dream too. I don't know why it was only you guys. But like, what if that's what's going on here? That these zombies...what if they're controlled by somebody?"

"Oh like what, southern voodoo and weird black magic like that?"

Bob shook his head.

"Have any of you guys actually been to the South much? It's not all about the creepy stuff, even though the ghost hunting shows and movies seem to popularize that."

"But wait, what if there's some truth to that? I mean, there are different ways of creating zombies," Mikey added, looking around at the others, noticing Ryan had frozen where he stood, an out of place expression on his face.

"Ryan, are yo-" And before he could finish asking him if he was okay, the guitarist had ran over to Jon and grabbed his shoulders and had started to shake him, looking like he was on the edge of tears.

"Ryan. Ryan. Man, what the hell? Calm down! Did you see something? It's okay, it'll pass, you know how your visions are." Jon reassured, putting a hand out so he'd stop moving.

"No. No. NO THIS IS NOT GONNA PASS! I just...I just...it was...fuck, you guys. I know who's causing all this!" his voice cracked, whatever he had seen was really bothering him.

"WHO?!" Almost everybody in the group shouts at once.

"Spencer. He sent me a vision...there's these drug dealing guys, they're keeping him somewhere back home and they're...the people keeping him are..."

"LIke the guys we're talking about now that may or may not have been in my dream?" AJ offered, grinning slightly although the situation was totally inappropriate.

"Exactly. He's being held by necromancers, and if we don't get to him soon-"

"We're pretty much dead already, no matter what." William pointed out, "Because you know the number of zombies we're facing is only going to increase."

"No, there's NO WAY he's the cause of all this...he's Spencer. Spencer James 'Flawless Bitch' Smith. Do you see my point?

"Looks like Flawless Bitch isn't so flawless after all."


	22. Chapter 22

FLASHBACK

Spencer Smith walked quickly down the Las Vegas street. He only had to make it a few more blocks and then he would be at J's house and everything would be okay again. The stress of being a part of Panic At The Disco had severely stressed him out and he was no longer able to stand it. In a need for a quick fix, he had turned to drugs and alcohol. Of course, he had had to get creative, seeing as regular mortal drugs had no effect on his no longer living body. It took a couple trips to the seedier side of Las Vegas before he found J.

J was a necromancer, someone who could control the dead. He was also a druggie and a dealer, specializing in drugs for the undead. All it had taken was one little pill and Spencer was inevitably hooked. He began doing everything he could to support his habit, from stealing to selling prized possessions. He would do anything just so he didn't have to face reality sober. It had inevitably lead to tensions between him and his bandmates. After Ryan and Jon had left, he and Brendon had done a lot to try and distance themselves from the two, though it wasn't easy, especially for Brendon since he had sired the three of them. Eventually, Brendon and Spencer had gone their separate ways as well, Brendon being none the wiser to Spencer's problem.

Everything had been going great for Spencer until about two months ago. His tolerance to the drug had been steadily increasing and he was running short on cash. He had bought a large amount of drugs from J and his crew with the intent to pay them as soon as possible. Unfortunately for him, he never paid them.

One night, he was stumbling around downtown Vegas, drinking in the sights and sounds, made even better by the combination of drugs he had ingested. Suddenly, he found himself surrounded by a group of people. Even in his drug-induced haze, he recognized them as J's fellow dealers.

"Hey guys, how's it going?" he slurred

"Well, you're about it find out. We're going to take you on a little adventure," one of the men said as he beat Spencer over the head with a metal pipe. Spencer fell to the ground, unconscious. They bound and gagged him and threw him in the back of a van, which sped off towards an undisclosed location.

Spencer slowly came back to consciousness. He was sitting in a chair, bound by ropes. There was something covering his eyes and there was something that had a putrid taste in his mouth. Suddenly, the covering over his eyes was ripped off and he was staring into bright white light. He hissed in displeasure.

"Oh hey, Spencer. Good to see you're actually awake. I was worried that Animal over there had killed you by mistake," said J.

J was a tall man with fire engine red hair who wore a lot of black and carried a large scythe.

"Spencer, do you know why you're here?" J asked, walking closer to Spencer

Spencer shook his head.

"Oh come on, surely you have SOME idea as to why we've brought you here."

Again, Spencer shook his head.

J reached forward and grabbed Spencer's hair, forcing his head up so that he would look him in the eyes.

"How about the money you owe us, you little asshole?!"

Spencer winced and tried to reply, but the gag in his mouth made it come out muffled.

"Hey J, it looks like he wants to say something!" remarked one of the female necromancers

J ripped the gag out of Spencer's mouth and threw it to the floor.

"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?" J asked

Spencer tried to reply, but when he opened his mouth, he vomited on the floor, the sour taste of the gag becoming too much for him.

J walked over to Spencer and took a knife out of his pocket. He gently ran the blade up and down Spencer's cheek.

"Listen, Spencer, you've been a great client. You really have. However, I'm running a business here, and I need my money. Now, do you have the money or not?" he asked

"I don't….I don't have the money," he slurred, his voice hoarse.

J pushed the knife a little harder against the side of Spencer's face, resulting in a cut.

"No no, that simply will not do. Hm, since it doesn't look like I'll be getting my money, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do, Spencer Smith. Instead of waiting for you to pay me, I'll have my revenge in another way. You see, my friends and I are able to control the dead. Actually, we're able to control anything that was once living that is now dead. We're going to use our abilities to make you life and the lives of anyone you care about, a living hell. After all, it's been said that when there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth. So, let's have a little fun, shall we?" J asked as he walked towards his comrades.

Over the next two months, J and his friends caused the dead to walk among the living, starting small at first. They only went for Las Vegas, but they soon got bored, and J sent his associates to other cities in order to wreak havoc, and wreak havoc, they did.


	23. Chapter 23

Shortly after Ryan's vision, it was decided that they should go to Las Vegas to see if they could put a stop to this zombie business once and for all. Before leaving for Vegas, Chuck and Bob went to the local apothecary to replenish the supplies they would need. Once they had come back, they departed for Las Vegas.

When they arrived in Vegas, the sun was just beginning to set.

"Well, what do you think? Should we wait until morning or should we just get this over with now?" William asked, eyes scanning the city for anything unusual

"Why don't we lay low for now? We're in an unfamiliar location. We don't want to risk it by trying anything since we have no idea where anything is. Let's start off early tomorrow morning and just take the night off," Bob suggested and for once, everyone agreed with him.

Something caught Amelia's eye and she walked down the street, away from the group.

"Amelia! Where do you think you're going?" Seb yelled

Amelia turned around and grinned at him, her eyes full of excitement.

"I found a magic store!"

"Well, it looks like she found something to entertain herself with. Seb, why don't you and your friends go with her? We'll scope out the town and try to find a place to stay," Gerard suggested and Seb agreed.

The five of them went chasing down the street after Amelia, who had already disappeared inside the magic shop. Once inside the shop, Amelia immediately began asking the magicians to demonstrate all sorts of effects. The six of them stayed in the shop easily for two hours, being amazed by one trick after another. Amelia even performed some tricks, much to everyone's delight.

Eventually, the shop had to close, so they were forced to leave. Chuck texted Gerard, asking if they'd found a place to stay. He texted back in the affirmative and met them outside the shop shortly thereafter. It was only 9 p.m., but everyone decided to turn in, figuring they needed to be in top shape for whatever lay in store tomorrow.

As Amelia climbed into bed and Sebastien laid down next to her, he noticed she was singing a song, softly.

"What song is that?" Seb asked

"It's called Take A Look Around by this band called Dredg. It's kind of about how everything, no matter how much we love it, will eventually be gone someday," she replied once she had finished singing.

"A little morbid, don't you think?"

She shrugged. "It's been in my head for the last few days."

"Well," he said, as he put an arm around her, "you don't have to worry about that because I'll keep you safe. I promise."

Amelia snuggled in closer and fell into a content sleep.

The next morning, everyone woke up, feeling refreshed and ready to face whatever was coming next. After Gerard took Pierre, Frank, and David hunting and after everyone else had had some kind of breakfast and had showered and stuff, they all met up outside of the hotel. It was late afternoon, but they still had a few more hours of daylight.

"Okay Ryan, do you remember what kind of building it was?" Bob asked

"Uh, it was some kind of dirty abandoned building. I don't really remember," Ryan admitted.

"All right, does anyone else have any ideas?" David wondered

"Wait, I have an idea. I can probably sense his energy," Chislett said. Everyone looked at him as if he were nuts.

"Hey, it's better than nothing!" he retorted

In the end, they decided to just walk, to try and get out of the downtown area to a place where the older buildings might have been. It took them almost a few hours, since they decided to stop for lunch while walking.

"Hey Ryan, you said that he was being held by some kind of drug dealers? Did you know he was into drugs?" Bob asked

"Well, I had my suspicions, but I never actually got confirmation. Why?"

"No reason. Stay here," Bob said, as the group approached the seedier area of town. There was a man in a hoodie, standing on a street corner, looking around nervously. Bob went over and talked to the man, brandishing his wand several times. After a few moments, he walked back to the group, dragging the man by the arm behind him.

"Guys, this is Stink Eye and he has so graciously agreed to take us to where Spencer was last seen. Now, walk and I swear to god, if you stop, I'll kill you," Bob said, pointing his wand at the man.

The man walked in front and everyone else followed. After about 10 minutes of walking, they came to an old building.

"He's in here, I know it!" Ryan exclaimed

Bob turned to the man in front of him.

"Now, run along, Stinky. Things are about to get ugly."

The man nodded and took off running.

"You guys ready to do this?" Bob asked

Everyone nodded. The sun had just set.

With a flick of his wand, Bob had made the door in front of them explode. They walked through the door and were greeted by the sight of Spencer, sitting in a chair, tied up. He looked like he had been through hell and back. There was blood everywhere. Before they could take a step forward, William stopped them.

"Wait. There's more than one person here. Be careful."

No sooner had the words left his mouth and bullets rained down on them. Bob and Pierre both shielded everyone from the assault. From out of the shadows stepped seven people. One of them had red hair and wielded a deadly looking scythe on his back. He appeared to be the leader.

"Well well well, what do we have here? Some new customers?" he asked, a cruel smile playing on his features

"Cut the shit. We're here for Spencer," Ryan said, gesturing to his friend.

The man walked over to Spencer and gently stroked his cheek.

"Oh, you must be the friends he's been talking about! He's been saying that you guys would come and save him for weeks now and lo and behold, here you are. Well unfortunately, he owes me a debt, and I'm not quite finished with him yet," he said as he yanked Spencer's head up so that everyone could see how tired and how utterly defeated he looked.

Without a word, the man drew a knife from his pocket and slashed Spencer's throat before driving the knife into where his heart would be. The body disintegrated into ash. Everyone was stunned.

"No no no no! First Brendon, and now Spencer….no! I'm going to kill you!" Ryan yelled as he ran forward, fingertips bristling with electricity

Everyone fell into battle positions shortly thereafter.

"Hey J, know what's really interesting?" asked a voluptuous woman

"What's that, Aria?" J asked as he dodged a rock from Pierre

"Most of these people here are vampires!"

"Really? Well, things just got interesting!" J declared

The man and his companions all stopped. They each took a knife from their pockets and stabbed themselves through the hand. When they pulled the knife from their hand, blood flowed free. Everyone else stopped short, surprised by this unexpected action. With a flourish of their hands, each of them drew a symbol in the air. Nothing prepared them for what happened next.

AJ, who was standing next to Jeff, immediately turned to him and tried to attack him. The rest of the Dandies, as well as Frank, Gerard, and Pierre did the same thing!

"Oh fuck! They're necromancers!" Bob yelled as he began launching several consecutive spells at Frank, who was using Firebending

"Bob, we knew that already!" Chuck yelled.

"No, that's not what I meant! They're able to control things that are dead, right? Well, everyone who is a vampire is technically dead! Shit!" he replied as he dodged two consecutive fire blasts from Frank

Things just got a whole lot worse. Amelia and Chuck tried to do the best they could, using Waterbending to try and immobilize some of the vampires. To Amelia's frustration, the water refused to work with her.

"Chuck, what the hell is going on?" she yelled, trying to avoid being hit by Carden

"I don't know!" he yelled back as he glanced down at his watch. His watch was a fancy model that also happened to show the moon phases so that he would know when the next full moon was. In the spot where there would normally be an icon of the moon, there was nothing but a dark hole.

"Oh shit, it's a new moon! That's why the water isn't working. We're weaker during a new moon!"

Amelia cursed internally. If she and Chuck were weakened, that would mean Sebastien and Mikey were too. This wasn't good! Nonetheless, she fought on.

David, on the other hand, was having a difficult time. The voluptuous woman was staring at him with her bleeding hand still outstretched, which did nothing except stir up feelings of hunger for him.

"I don't get it. You are a vampire. Why are you not under my control?" she asked.

David smirked. "I'm actually only a half-vampire, meaning that I'm still partially human. Your tricks won't work on me!"

With that, he began to summon his immense Airbending power to try and free his friends from the control of the necromancers.

Mikey and Sebastien were doing the best they could to fight off William and Gerard, but with the new moon in place, they were at a severe disadvantage. It was a lot more difficult for them to phase, so they had to settle for fighting in their human forms.

Amelia was still having a difficult time. Now, she was going toe to toe with Pierre. Since he was a newly turned vampire, he was a lot stronger than normal because the change had amplified his bending abilities. He turned the floor beneath Amelia's feet into quicksand, trapping her. She fell over and was helpless as he bore down on her. His fangs tore into her neck and she screamed in pain. To make matters worse, she felt a wetness on the front of her shirt. She looked down and saw that Pierre had thrust his hand into her stomach, almost like he was trying to disembowel her. In the back of her head, she knew that there was no way she was going to come out of this one. The last thing she saw as her vision began to dim was that of Sebastien, who had managed to tackle Pierre in an effort to get him away from her. Always acting like the protector. That was just like him. As she felt her consciousness slip away for the final time, she smiled. At least she had lived a good life. She could only hope that she left an impact. After that, there was nothing.

AJ had watched, through a sort of haze, as Pierre pounced on Amelia, who tried to defend herself. Seb, as always, had been the first person to reach her, he turning on Pierre just to get him away from her.

Mikey had tried get there from across the room to interfere, to save her, and then everything happened at once.

As soon as Pierre had tackled Amelia, someone had gone for Mikey.

And that someone had been Gerard.

Sebastien had been watching the whole fight between Amelia and Pierre as he managed to dodge everything that William threw at him while Mikey went against Gerard. The moment that he saw Pierre tackle Amelia, he used every ounce of strength to avoid William and try to make it over to her. By the time he had managed to get Pierre away from her, the damage was already done. Her eyes were closed and there was a smile on her face, but he could not hear a heartbeat.

At once, he was filled with an anguished rage! He wanted to completely and utterly destroy whoever had done this. Unfortunately, that happened to be Pierre. He knew that his friend had not been in control of his actions, but he needed to hit something before he exploded. Instead, he chose to focus on one of the necromancers. As he turned to run towards them, he saw Gerard take a swipe at Mikey, but he was too focused on killing something that he ran past the two.

Meanwhile, Gerard had just taken another swipe at Mikey.

"Gerard, stop! It's me, Mikey! Your brother!" he yelled, dodging Gerard once again

"Dear boy, do you really think he can hear you? He's under my control!" laughed one of the female necromancers

Mikey growled. The only person who he would ever allow to call him that was his mother.

With a renewed focus, he grabbed Gerard's arm as he went to punch him and held it in place. Gerard struggled and tried to throw another punch. Mikey caught his other fist and held tight, his muscles shaking as he tried to keep Gerard from attacking him.

The female necromancer smiled. With a swipe of her hand, she made Gerard twist Mikey's arms and force them downward, immobilizing him. He thrashed, trying to free himself. Gerard delivered a kick to the face and Mikey winced as he heard bones break. Slightly dazed from the pain, he allowed Gerard to grab him by the collar of his shirt.

"So long and good night, brother," he said as the necromancer forced the words out of his mouth.

With a clawed hand, he raked his nails across Mikey's neck. Mikey made a pitiful gurgling noise as he tried to breathe through his severed trachea. He didn't need to worry much about breathing though, for in the next instant, Gerard had wrapped his hands around his bloody throat and twisted, breaking his neck.

AJ didn't even have time to pay attention to any of the other action around her, time stood still as every memory she had ever made with Amelia hit her like a slap in the face - the first day of freshman year at Barrington when the two had bonded over their love for TAI and FOB, among all the other bands. The many concerts they'd gone to over the years, particularly spring break senior year and how annoyed Amelia had become when AJ brushed her off time and time again for William almost every time after the first night. The creepypasta episode the year after graduation, where again the gang got together to fight evil, and how AJ had constantly teased her about liking Seb - and then, eight years later, even when they had their own lives, they had still worked together until the very end, which AJ had thought would never come.

Never let them take you alive. LOOK ALIVE, SUNSHINE!

How many times had she and Amelia ran around yelling various killjoy lingo and lyrics from Danger Days at the top of their lungs? The haze AJ was in was like the draculoid masks, and she sure as hell wasn't about to let these living-dead puppeteers take her soul and resistance.

It took everything she had to snap out of the necromancer's control, but once she did, she phased and turned around, two inch wolf fangs sinking into the neck of the enemy closest to her, howling afterward as the offender's neck was torn out.

The sight of AJ ripping into one of the necromancers got everyone else's attention, and within seconds, William, Carden, and Jon had snapped out of the control they'd been under as well. When most of the vampires got their control back, the fight was over before it even began, the rest of the necromancers being taken out with ease, although the entire battle had cost everyone more than they had bargained for.


	24. Chapter 24

Pierre was the last one of the vampires to snap out of it, and when he did, nothing looked okay. AJ was in the middle of the floor, curled into a ball, howling in anguish. William knelt beside her, rubbing her back, trying to calm her down.

Frank and Ray were kneeling by someone else's body, and in horror Pierre realized it was Mikey's. Bob just stood there, head bowed, unsure of what to say. Gerard was yelling and trying to destroy a nearby wall in order to redirect his anger.

Sisky and Butcher were talking to Ryan and Jon, the two were over by Spencer's body, all four of them dazed and in slight denial that so much had occurred and been so destructive.

Carden, as usual, had slunk into the shadows, not exactly interested in all of the sadness around him. Chuck and Jeff were talking in another area to an obviously upset - ok, upset was an understatement, Seb.

Pierre saw Chislett earthbend some quicksand in the middle of the room, close to where AJ lay, and she screamed again, turning to bury her head into William to muffle herself.

And when he saw why she had screamed, he almost threw up, making the mistake of looking at his hands - they were blood red, and judging from the gaping hole in Amelia's abdomen, he'd been the one to inflict it.

At once Pierre dropped to his knees and threw up, unable to suppress the reflex, nothing coming up but blood that he'd had earlier that morning.

He looked up at the hand on his shoulder, it was David.

"David, what'd I...WHAT DID I DO?!" Pierre yelled, pulling the half vampire down to his level, and wrapped his arms around him, sobbing, holding onto to him just to make sure he was still real.

"It wasn't your fault...you didn't realize what you were doing..."

"THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT ANY LESS PAINFUL TO LOOK AT!"

AJ had managed to uncurl herself from the wreck she'd been on the floor, and sat up, then stood shakily, ignoring the arm William offered to help her steady herself.

David watched as she began to walk towards him and Pierre, and for a moment he wondered if they were going to be the next to die.

But when she reached them, she only knelt next to them and joined in on the hug, crying just as hard as Pierre was.

When he could finally catch his breath, he turned to look at her and she gave him a sad smile.

"I should want to tear you in half right now, but I know it wasn't your fault."

"Thank you...we've been through enough, just look around...I can't...this is just..."

"None of this is what we wanted, but we're still here. And there's memories still. It'll be okay - sure it might take a few centuries, and we might never really get over this, but fuck WHAT AM I SAYING?!" and her voice, already hoarse from screaming, cracked again as the tears began anew.

Nobody knew exactly what to say to anyone, or how to proceed. In time though, they disposed of the necromancers bodies, and took care to gather their own dead.

By the time the smoke had cleared, everybody's eyes burned, probably more from tears than from smoke. AJ, finally composed enough to stop crying for more than five minutes, said exactly what was on everyone's minds.

"Can we leave this place? I don't really want to go anywhere, but I'd rather it be anywhere else but here."

Somber nods met the decision all around.

After the necromancers had been taken care of, nothing went back to normal. Well, sure, the zombies disappeared, but in terms of feelings nothing would ever be the same again.

Everyone that was left thought it would just be best to lay around for a few days and adjust, so once again the Dandies' mansion found its once empty rooms being filled, although one of their own would never wander its halls again.

It was weird, AJ thought; to have most of the boys back actually listening to her again, although she knew if Brendon had still been alive he would've challenged her a few times, at least.

The rest of the guys she didn't mind anymore, everyone had gotten closer since the final battle, or so it seemed.

The night TAI broke up seemed like a shallow child's ghost story in comparison to the feelings of loss that palpated every waking moment.

And if she'd thought that losing a best friend had been painful, all she had to do was look around the room, where certain points just hurt - there were moments AJ couldn't even bring herself to look at Sebastien, because for as terrible and sad as she felt about Amelia's death, she knew he was feeling even worse.

A lover's pain will always be worse, because the person lost is both a love in return as well as their best friend. But even so, there is a pain that tops this.

Family.

AJ and Amelia had always watched the video for MCR's 'The Ghost of You' right after it first came out, and in that video, being set in the WWII Omaha beach invasion of Normandy, Mikey had died.

Never did she think it would become a reality, but the harsher truth was in front of her everytime she looked at Gerard. Since the second his brother had died, so had something inside him, because there had been a part of his eyes that never seemed to shine quite as bright as before that moment.

And yet, with all of this grief and negative emotion around her, so couldn't help but wonder if there had been something she'd been forgetting about.

"So. We saved the world, and here's hoping this is finally the last time we have to get together like this." Frank commented, stretched out on one of the couches in the parlor.

"I think a week's long enough to lay around, I know we all feel terrible, but come on, Mikey and Amelia wouldn't want us sitting here moping around crying our eyes out," David added.

"So what are we supposed to do? I just don't want to do anything...I'm so numb. Last time I felt this bad was before I knew how to control my transformations, back when I'd accidentally kill people." Seb said, head in his hands as he sat in one of the loveseats by the fireplace.

"You call that numb? I'm hearing Mikey's voice everytime I see a bass guitar and it's going to be the death of me." Gerard countered.

"Guys...can't we just-" At that moment, Seb's cell phone rang.

He picked it up, and was surprised to find Lucian on the other line.

"Sebastien, my boy, how are things? It seems like reports of the zombie crisis are winding down, I trust the problem's been resolved?"

He sighed.

"Yes...but not without its losses. We've lost a few of our own, and..." he paused, not sure how the lycan leader would react to the news that Mikey was dead.

"Mikey was among one of the fallen."

The other line was silent for a few seconds, before the sounds of multiple objects hitting the wall in rapid succession was heard. Lucian had penchant for throwing things when he was upset.

"WHAT? HOW!?"

"The zombies we were facing...they were controlled by necromancers, which in turn made us fight each other. One of the necromancers got to him as he was trying to save someone else."

Lucian paused, taking in the news.

"I see. If the threat is gone, it's fitting Gerard and Frank's families return to the States then, and I'll join them, in being I wish to pay respects. It's terrible news, to hear of the death of a lycan such as him. You are okay, yes?"

"Okay and working through it are two different things, but in that context, yes, I'm okay. How long do you think it'll be until you reach Chicago?"

"Three days, if I arrange everything right away and get everyone ready. We'll see you then, Sebastien."

"See you."

"Was that-" Jeff cut in from his spot beside the fire.

"Lucian. Gerard, Frank, he'll be over here in about three days with your families. I broke the news to him about Mikey...he's also staying to pay respects."

"Oh. Shouldn't we just go back to Jersey and tell him to meet us there than?" Frank wondered.

"Probably would be best." Gerard said, pulling out his phone, "Seb, what's his number? I'll call him back and let him know to meet us in Jersey."

"Wait, you guys are leaving?" AJ asked sadly, sifting through old photo albums for photos of her and Amelia, knowing the best way to heal was just grieve until she couldn't anymore.

"Well yeah. Imagine if you hadn't seen William in two months, how'd you feel?" Gerard asked her, to which she nodded, "Alright I get your point. But like...what's going to happen? You're not all going to disappear again, are you? And Ryan...Jon...you guys aren't gonna just...you know, disappear? Seb, I know you and the guys'll still be around but I just. I feel like we're back where we belong. I don't want things to change anymore, we've lost so much already." she pointed out.

No one really knew how to answer that, until Chislett came into the room to call everyone into the kitchen for tea.

"Tea? Really?" David asked.

"British stereotype. Tea solves all problems," AJ explained, smiling for once as she got up, intending to prepare a small tray of shortbread and other cookies, as was customary for tea.

"If only it had worked that way with the zombies."

Three days later, Gerard and Frank went back to New Jersey to meet Lucian with their families when they got into the States. Ray tagged along mostly because he didn't have anything else to do.

Bob had decided to go back to the South, although he promised to stay in touch this time.

When it came to Simple Plan, soon enough it was time for them to move on as well, and on the same day Gerard Frank, and Ray left, so did they, everyone but Seb deciding to go back to Montreal. Seb ended up going with Gerard and the others to Jersey, mostly to meet up with Lucian and tell him the full story of everything that had happened.

As far as Panic! went, Jon was staying in Chicago, he was still working on music, so he and William had worked it out so that the label that William was on was going to look into Jon and maybe sign him as well.

Ryan he decided to head back out to Echo Park, and continue with his own demo album, although nothing was official yet, and when AJ asked when, she only got a reply that made her fangirl, being the line had been from one of the first Panic! videos from the Fever era, it being, "And don't wait up for me."

For the rest of TAI, this was probably where AJ felt the most pain - watching the band that had been so happy together once again splitting to go separate ways.

Butcher had gotten a call from a former classmate about an open position in a new band called Whips, which he said he wanted to check out, being it was based out of Milwaukee and he could go back home. Chislett wanted to go back to Australia, because for him it seemed the musical opportunities there were endless. Sisky had somehow managed to get back into contact with Carly-Rae, who'd said she wanted him back playing with her for her next studio album. And Carden, as usual, probably literally was just going to disappear again, but AJ was perfectly fine with that.

It was funny, AJ realized - it had been almost nine years now - and the only thing truly constant during all of that time had been William, who she knew would never leave her, especially since- FUCK. THAT'S what she'd been forgetting!

Pulling out her phone and logging onto twitter, she did the same thing she'd done the first time to get everyone's attention, sent through direct messages to everyone that had just left the mansion earlier that day.

rarityinempathy: DAMN IT YOU GUYS WAIT. MY WEDDING'S IN THREE WEEKS!


End file.
